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THE 



CATACOMBS OF ROME 



AS ILLUSTRATING 



%\t d\mt\ 



THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES 



Right Rev. WM. INGRAHAM KIP, D. D. 

MISSIONARY BISHOP OF CALIFORNIA, 

AUTHOR OF "THE LENTEN FAST" — "THE DOUBLE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH"- 

" THE EARLY CONFLICTS. OF CHRISTIANITY" — " THE CHRISTMAS HOLYDAYS 

IN ROME" — "THE EARLY JESUIT MISSIONS IN NORTH AMERICA," ETC. 



Plena di morti, tutta la campagna. — Petrarcha. 




R E D FI E L D 

110 AND 112 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 
1854. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, 
By J. S. REDFIELD, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 
Southern District of New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE, 
13 Chambers Street, If. Y. 



, * ^ 



«//7 



/> 



THE REVEREND 
CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY, Jr., 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



Among the most cherished recollections of the 
past, is one of a morning in the early spring, when 
two youth stood on the banks of the Potomac, 
about to separate, as they feared, perhaps for ever. 
They talked of the pleasant past when their tastes 
and pursuits had been the same, and of the shadowy 
future which to them was radiant with all that the 
imagination could picture. 

And so they parted. Years have since gone by. 
Of the companions of those happy months, some 
are now scattered over the land, wearily waging 
the warfare of life, and some are sleeping in their 



6 DEDICATION. 

quiet graves. Seldom have the two friends, who 
parted in the morning of life, met face to face; yet 
time has not severed those early bonds, and often 
have greetings passed between their distant homes, 
to brighten the chain of brotherhood which bound 
them together. And now, when the whole length 
and breadth of the land is about to be placed be- 
tween them, and they may never meet again in 
this world, the one would dedicate this little vol- 
ume to the companion of his early days, as a trib- 
ute to that friendship which has been steadfast 
through youth and manhood, and which, he trusts, 
may one day be renewed in that land where there 
shall be no more partings. 

Albany, Advent, 1S5S. 



PKEFACE. 

The writer believes that the argument derived 
from the Catacombs of Rome, in defence of primi- 
tive truth, is but little known in this country, and 
that he might therefore be doing some service by- 
placing it in an accessible form. To most readers 
it will be a new chapter in the past history of the 
Church. Hitherto, the descriptions have been locked 
up in ponderous, folios, or foreign languages, with 
the exception of two or three small volumes pub- 
lished in England. He believes that no work on 
this subject has ever been printed in this country. 

The first writer whose attention was turned to 
these remains of the past, was Father Bosio. He 
spent more than thirty years (1567 to 1600) in ex- 
ploring the Catacombs, penetrating into some of 
the innermost crypts which had been closed for 
centuries, and in making drawings of ancient mon- 
uments, inscriptions, and paintings. It became 
the absorbing passion of his life, until, we are told, 



8 PREFACE. 

" lie lived so much in the dark catacombs, that the 
bright light of the sun was painful to his eyes." 
Yet he did not survive to see the result of his la- 
bors made known to the world, but died while 
writing the last chapter of his work. His accu- 
mulated manuscripts and drawings, with the partly- 
finished engravings, passed into the hands of Father 
Severano, who added a chapter of his own, and pub- 
lished the work at Eome, in the year 1632, under 
the title of " Roma Sotterranea." This work was 
translated into Latin by Father Arringhi, and pub- 
lished in two very large folio volumes, at Eome, in 
1651 and 1659. These publications first awakened 
the interest of the learned in Europe to the subject 
of the Catacombs. 

In 1702, Fabretti published a collection of epi- 
taphs, under the title, " Inscriptionum antiquarum, 
&c. explicatio." But the most important work 
was by Father Boldetti, canon of Santa-Maria in 
Trastevere, and custode of the Catacombs. It ap- 
peared in 1720, in a large folio volume, entitled, 
" Osservazioni sopra i Cimiterii dei Santi Martiri, 
&c. di Roma." He too passed more than thirty 
years in the examination of the tombs and crypts. 
Bottari then published, in 1737 and 1754, three 
large folio volumes on Christian art, under the title, 
" Sculture e pitture sagre, estratte dai Cimiteri di 
Roma." His companion, Father Marangoni, a la- 
borious Jesuit, also brought out two works con- 



PREFACE. 9 

nected with the subject, between the years 1740 
and 1744. 

The next distinguished writer in this catalogue 
was M. D'Agincourt, an ardent student of Christian 
archaeology, who toward the close of the last cen- 
tury settled himself in Rome, to investigate these 
relics of primitive days. He intended to stay six 
months, but, like Bosio, it became the study of his 
life; and he remained for fifty years solely occu- 
pied in collecting and arranging the materials of 
his w r ork, which did not appear till after his death. 
It is entitled, " Histoire de l'Art par les Monu- 
mens." Among* the more modern writers on this 
subject, on the continent, are Munter, a Danish 
bishop, M. Raoul Kochette, the Abbe Gaume, and 
the Abbe Gerbet. M. Ferret, a French artist, hns 
recently devoted six years to the study of the Cata- 
combs and their contents, and returned to Paris 
with the materials for a great work which will 
soon be published. It will probably, however, 
relate more to art than to Christian doctrine or 
antiquities. 

In England, the only work of any research is, 
" The Church in the Catacombs," by Charles Mait- 
land, M. D., published in 1846. There is also a 
small volume by Charles Macfarlane, Esq., intend- 
ed, how r ever, only to give a popular view of the 
outward appearance of the Catacombs, and pur- 
posely entering into no theological discussions. 

1* 



10 PREFACE. 

"I have," says the author, " carefully avoided con- 
troversial points." 

In compiling the present volume, the writer must 
of course disclaim all attempts at originality. The 
subject does not admit of it. Having been exceed- 
ingly interested in the study of these Christian anti- 
quities, when in Rome in 1845, he has endeavored 
to impart to his descriptions the freshness of his own 
recollections. Still, for the materials, he must de- 
pend principally upon the voluminous works of 
those who had gone before him. While " other 
men have labored," he has " entered into their 
labors." His great authority has been Arringhrs 
"Eoraa Subterranea," of which he believes there is 
but a single copy in this country. This he has 
studied carefully, endeavoring to avail himself of 
the labors of this distinguished antiquarian on the 
points he has brought forward, and the illustrations 
he has employed. 

To Maitland, also, he must acknowledge his in- 
debtedness. He has pursued somewhat the same 
plan, and availed himself in some instances of his 
pages, to procure fac-similes of inscriptions which 
were not to be found in older works. Often, how- 
ever, in his study of Arringhi, he has subsequently 
discovered lie had been anticipated by Maitland, 
and that they had both copied the same inscriptions 
to illustrate the points brought forward. Believing, 
however, that this volume may be used by Ameri- 



PREFACE. . 11 

can readers, who would not meet with the expen- 
sive English work, he has not thought it necessary, 
on that account, to alter his manner of treating 
any particular subject. 

This work might have been much extended, but 
if materially enlarged, it would have defeated the 
object of the writer. His aim has been, not to at- 
tempt the production of a volume displaying anti- 
quarian or classical learning, but a simple and 
popular view of these great historical facts which 
in this country are so little known. He has en- 
deavored to present a picture of the early Church 
in Home, in the manliness and purity of its faith, 
that those who are dreaming of Home as she is in 
this age, may see that approximation to her, as she 
now sits upon her Seven Hills, is no approach to 
the simplicity and truth of primitive times. The 
dogmas of Trent have placed a " great gulf" be- 
tween the apostolic Church of Rome, and the mod- 
ern Church of the popes. 

To his brethren, then, he commits this volume, 
as an attempt to aid in that great contest which 
every year is becoming of deeper interest — the 
contest between primitive truth and modern inno- 
vations. Bunyan, in his day, spoke the popular 
voice, when he described Giant Pope, as "yet 
alive, but by reason of age, and also of the many 
shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger 
days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he 



12 PREFACE. 

now can do little more than sit in Lis cave's mouth, 
grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his 
nails because he can not come at them." Yet in 
this age, that power seems to be putting forth new 
and unwonted efforts, and we may yet have once 
more to wage that warfare, which three centuries 
ago was so successfully carried on by the English 
reformers. And in doing this, we must go back to 
the early days of the Church, and learn, as far as 
we can, how the first followers of our Lord thought 
and trusted and acted. And, we believe, that in 
accumulating this testimony, it will be found, that 
not the least important is that which comes from 
the tombs of the early Soman Christians. 



CONTENTS. 

L 
Visit to the Catacombs * page 17 

II. 
Origin and History of the Catacombs 29 

III. 
Description of the Catacombs 49 

IV. 
The Inscriptions in the Catacombs 69 

V. 
The Martyrs of the Catacombs 87 

VI. 
The Symbols in the Catacombs 103 

VII. 

Ministry and Rites of the Early Church 151 

VIII. 
The Changes of Modern Rome 171 

IX. 
Conclusion 201 



VISIT TO THE CATACOMBS. 



I. . 

VISIT TO THE CATACOMBS. 

About two miles from the gates of Rome, on that 
same Appian Way, over whose pavements once the 
legions of victorious Rome marched on their way to 
the Capitol, and whose stones were bedewed with 
the tears of captive princes as they were dragged 
along to swell the glory of the triumph, stands the 
church of St. Sebastian. The tide of population 
has flowed away from it — the dwellers about have 
fled from the deadly miasma which broods over 
these wastes — the ruins of their habitations have 
sunk beneath the soil, as the rank vegetation rose 
around them — and the church, with its adjoining 
monastery, stands nothing but a monument of the 
saint who is said to have suffered martyrdom on 
that spot. 

It w r as on one of those genial mornings when an 
Italian winter is rapidly changing to its early spring, 
that we stood opposite to this time-worn relic of the 
past. A scene which presented the image of more 
perfect repose could not be imagined. Around us, 



18 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

far and wide, stretched the desolate Campagna, till 
in the dim horizon rose the purple hills of Albano, 
consecrated on the classic page as having on their 
slopes the villa of Horace, and the now vanished 
palace of Maecenas, where once the princely patron 
gathered around him the wit and genius of Rome 
in her most intellectual days. Before us were the 
broken arches of the Claudian aqueduct, the ruined 
shrine of Egeria, from which the Nymph and Dry- 
ad have long since fled, and the massive tomb of 
Coecilia Metella, 

" with two thousand years of ivy grown, 

The garland of Eternity, where wave 
The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown." 

The Eternal city was sleeping in the distance, the 
still air brought no murmur of its population, and 
the whole wide landscape gave no sign of life. A 
beggar was slumbering in the porch of the appa- 
rently deserted church, and not a sound broke the 
stillness, but the droning of some insects which 
were wheeling around in ceaseless circles in the 
sunlight. It was a scene to be found nowhere but 
among the solemn ruins which encircle this "Niobe 
of nations." 

Beneath this church is the only entrance to the 
Catacombs by which admittance is usually gained. 
There is another indeed at the church of St. Agnes, 
but, for some reason, strangers are seldom permit- 
ted to enter it. The writer made many attempts 
while in Rome ; but though several times promised 
admission by ecclesiastics, he never succeeded in 
effecting it. And such, he has found, was the tes- 



VISIT TO THE CATACOMBS. 19 

timony of all his friends. The only individual he 
has met with, who was able to inspect the Catacombs 
of St. Agnes, was the late Thomas Cole, the artist, 
from whom he once received so interesting an ac- 
count, as to deepen his regret at his own failure. 
Mr. Cole represented these passages as being much 
richer in inscriptions and paintings than those of 
St. Sebastian, fewer having been removed from 
their original positions to be placed in the gallery 
of the Vatican.* 

There are also numberless openings scattered over 
the Campagna for miles, which, overgrown with 
vines, often prove dangerous to the incautious 
rider. It was of these that D'Agincourt availed 
himself, on several occasions, to enter the Cata- 
combs ; though without guides or landmarks, the 
experiment was a dangerous one. Some of them 
w T ere in existence during the persecutions in early 
Christian times, and were used as air-holes. They 
are spoken of in the " Acts of the Martyrs," as lu- 
minaria cryptce. Others were probably produced 
in later ages by the falling in of the ground where 
the roof of a passage had too nearly approached the 

* Professor Weir of West Point, to whom Mr. Cole also gave an 
account of his visit, has lately confirmed the writer's impressions 
with regard to the conversation. Among other things, Mr. Cole 
stated, that he was so impressed with the resemblance of some of 
the clerical garments, portrayed in fresco, to those now used in our 
Church, that he commenced copying them, but was prevented from 
finishing by those in charge of the cemetery. He then attempted 
at home to sketch them from memory. Unfortunately these draw- 
ings have not been found among his papers, and we have given in a 
succeeding chapter, the only passage in his letters relating to this 
subject. 



20 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

surface. Traditions tell ns of attempts made to 
overwhelm these galleries with mounds of earth, in 
order to destroy those who had taken refuge in their 
intricacies. But for various reasons the caves near 
the Basilica of St. Sebastian are considered by an- 
tiquarians as having been those first occupied by 
the Christians, and a portion of these, therefore, is 
kept open to gratify the interest of the curious. 

We entered the church, whose interior seemed as 
silent and deserted as the exterior. Wandering 
about from chapel to chapel, no one was to be seen 
but the mendicant who, awakened from his sleep in 
the sunshine, followed us in, whining forth his pe- 
tition for alms in the name of every saint in the cal- 
endar. At last, an old monk appeared from the 
adjoining monastery, and having made known our 
wish to visit the Catacombs, he furnished each of 
the party with a light, and led the way down the 
stone steps into the passages below. How many 
thousands, for centuries past, have trodden these 
well-worn steps : the careless and the irreverent, as 
well as those who went to this cradle of our faith as 
to a holy shrine ! Age after age the sandalled 
monk has glided over them, and through mediaeval 
times they have rung with the tread of the mailed 
knight. At the bottom of the stairs, we entered a 
winding passage which w r as the commencement of 
the Catacombs. Here they branch off in all direc- 
tions, and the contrast to the dark caves is far 
greater from leaving the balmy Italian atmosphere 
above. The air is not " the dew of the dungeon's 
damp," but something far more oppressive. It is 
hot, dry, and stifling, smelling of earth and dust. 



VISIT TO THE CATACOMBS. 21 

The intricate passages cross and recross, often not 
more than three feet wide, and so low that we 
were obliged to stoop. The difficulty of following 
them is greater from the fact, that they are gener- 
ally constructed in three stories, so that you con- 
stantly meet with steps which ascend or descend. 
At times, however, they expand into apartments 
arched overhead, and large enough to contain a 
small company. On ^ach side are cavities in 
which were placed the bodies of the dead, and 
small apertures where lamps were found. But few 
sarcophagi were discovered here, and these proba- 
bly date from the fourth century, when persecution 
had ceased, and more of the higher classes had be- 
gun to hand in their adherence to the faith. Before 
this, no pomp or ceremony attended the burial of 
the Christians, when their friends hastily laid them 
in these dark vaults. They sought not the sculp- 
tured marble to enclose their remains, but were 
contented with the rude emblems which were 
carved above, merely to show that for the body 
resting there they expected a share in the glory of 
the Resurrection. Yery many of the graves are 
those of children, and sometimes a whole family are 
interred together. The cavities were cut into the 
soft stone, just large enough for the body, with a 
semi-circular excavation for the head, and the open- 
ing was closed with a thin slab of marble. 

"When for the first time Sir Walter Scott was con- 
ducted to the lone and silent city of Pompeii, the 
only exclamation he uttered was, "The city of the 
dead! the city of the dead!" We felt how much 
more appropriately the epithet could be bestowed 



22 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

upon subterranean Rome. It was, indeed, a most 
interesting scene, as we followed the old monk with 
his trailing garments and noiseless tread, through 
these dark and silent passages. On each side of 
us were the yawning graves. For a moment they 
seemed to open, as the taper we carried brought 
them into the little circle of light, and then, as we 
passed, they closed again in the darkness. We 
were wandering among the dead in Christ, who 
more than sixteen centuries ago were borne to their 
rest. Around us were the remains of some, who, 
perhaps, had listened to the voices of apostles, 
and who lived while men were still upon the earth, 
who had seen Jesus of Nazareth, as He went on 
His pilgrimage through the length and breadth of 
Judea. It was a scene, however, to be felt more 
than to be described — a place in which to gather 
materials for thought for all our coming days, car- 
rying us back, as it did, to the earliest ages of our 
faith — ages when the only strife was, as to who 
should be foremost in that contest through which 
their Lord was to " inherit the earth." The holy 
spirit of the place — the genius loci — 'Seemed to 
impress itself upon all. They were hushed into a 
reverential silence, or if they spoke, it was in low 
and subdued tones. 

Yet we were glad to ascend the worn steps and 
find ourselves once more in the church above. 
We noticed, indeed, that the corners we turned in 
these intricate passages were marked with white 
paint to guide us, yet a sudden current of air extin- 
guishing our lights would make these signs useless, 
and from the crumbling nature of the rock there is 



VISIT TO THE CATACOMBS. 23 

always danger of the caving in of a gallery, or some 
other accident, which might involve a party in one 
common fate. We were told, indeed, that no 
longer ago than 1837, a school of nearly thirty 
youth, with their teacher, descended into these Cata- 
combs on a visit, and never reappeared. The pas- 
sage through which they entered, and which has 
since been walled up, was pointed out to us. Every 
search was made, but in vain ; and somewhere in 
these labyrinths they are mouldering by the side of 
the early disciples of our faith. The scene which 
then was exhibited in these dark passages, and the 
chill which gradually crept over their young spirits 
as hope yielded to despair, could be described only 
by Dante, in terms in which he has portrayed the 
death of Ugolino and his sons in the tower of Fam- 
ine, at Pisa.* 

There was, a few years since, a singular escape 
from the Catacombs, by a young French artist, M. 
Robert, which is still well remembered at Rome. 
Hans Christian Andersen, in his story of "The Im- 
provisator, or, Life in Italy," has wrought it up 
into an exciting scene, and it forms an episode in 
the Abbe de Lille's poem, " L'Imagination." We 
can not forbear quoting the version of the latter, 
from the pen of Mr. Macfarlane : — 

"Eager to know the secrets of the place, 
The holy cradle of our Christian race, 
A youthful artist threads those inmost cells, 
And lowest crypts, where darkness ever dwells. 
No friend to cheer him, and no guide to lead, 
He boldly trusts a flambeau and a thread. 

* Inferno, xxniii., 21-75. 



24 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

Brave and alone he cherishes his light, 

And trusts the clew will guide him back aright 

Onward he goes, along the low-arched caves, 

Crowded with martyrs' relics and thefr graves; 

Through palaces of death, by countless tombs, 

Through awful silence and through thick'ning glooms; 

Yet pausing oft, as walls and slabs impart 

Some lesson of the earliest Christian art, 

Or some black chasm warns him to beware, 

And change his steps, and trim his torch with care. 

Onward he goes, nor takes a note of time, 

Impelled, enchanted, in this dismal clfme; 

Thrilling with awe, but yet untouched by fenr, 

He passes on from dreary unto drear! 

The crypts diverge, the labyrinths are crowed — 

He will return — alas! his clew is lost! 

Dropped from his hand, while tracing out an urn ; 

The faithless string is gone, and dimly burn 

The flambeau's threads. He gropes, but gropes in vain, 

Recedes, advances, and turns back again ; 

A shivering awe, a downright terror next 

Seizes his soul, and he is sore perplexed! 

He halts, he moves, he thinks, he rushes on, 

But only finds that issue there is none. 

Crypt tangles crypt, a perfect network weaves 

This dark Daedalian world, these horrent caves. 

He mutters to himself, he shouts, he calls, 

And echo answers from a hundred walls. 

That awful echo doubles his dismay, 

That grimmer darkness leads his head astray. 

Cold at his heart! his breath, now quick, now slow, 

Sounds in that silence like a wail of wo! 

Oh ! for one cheering ray of Heaven's bright sun, 

Which through long hours his glorious course hath run, 

Since he came here! And now his torch's light 

Flickers, expires in smoke — and all is night! 

Thick-coming fancies trouble all his sense, 

He strives but vainly strives, to drive them thenec; 

Cleaves his dried tongue unto the drier roof, 

Nor word, nor breath, hath he at his behoof; 



VISIT TO THE CATACOMBS. 25 

That dying torch last shone upon a grave, 

That grave his tomb, for who shall help and save? 

Alone! yet not alon£, for phantoms throng 

His burning brain, and chase the crypts along. 

And other speetres rusli into the void — 

Bj-.ssings neglected, leisure misemployed, 

And passions left to rise and rage at will, 

And faults, called follies, but were vices still; 

And wild caprice, and words at random spoken, 

By which kind hearts were wounded, though not broken, 

Bootless resolves, repentance late and vain — 

All these and more come thundering through his brain; 

Condensing in one single moment rife, 

The sins of all his days, the history of his life ; 

And death at hand! not that which heroes hail, 

On battle-field, when 'Victory!' swells the gale, 

And love of country, Glory standing by, 

Make it a joy and rapture so to die! 

But creeping death, slow, anguished, and obscure, 

A famished death, no mortal may endure! 

But this his end! our prisoned artist's fate, 

He young, he joyous, and but now elate 

With every hope that warms the human breast, 

Before experience tells that life's a jest; 

Full of his art, of projects, and of love, 

Must he expire, while creeping things above, 

On the earth's surface, in the eye of day, 

Revel in life, nor feel this drear dismay? 

But hark! a stepl alas, no step i6 there! 

But see! a glimmering light! oh, foul despair! 

No ray pervades this darkness, grim and rare. 

He staggers, reels, and falls, and falling prone, 

Grapples the ground where he must die alone, 

But in that fall touches his outstretched hand 

That precious clew the labyrinth can command, 

Lost long, but now regained! O happy wight, 

Gather thy strength, and haste to life and light 

And up he rises, quick, but cautious grown, 

And threads the mazes by that string alone; 

Comes into light, and feels the fanning breeze, 

Sees the bright stars, and drops upon his knees; 

2 



26 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

His first free breath is uttered in a prayer, 

Such as none say but those who've known despair! 

And never were the stars of heaven so sheen, 

Except to those who'd dwell where he had been, 

And never Tiber, rippling Aough the meads, 

Made music half so sweet Aong its reeds; 

And never had the earth sJfh rich perfume, 

As when from him it chaseAthe odor of the tombT 



II. 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE CATACOMBS. 



II. 

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE CATACOMBS. 

It has been conjectured by some writers, that 
these excavations were commenced long before the 
founding of the Eternal city by that race who made 
it famous under the name of Rome. There are 
traces everywhere of a former mighty people in- 
habiting these sites, long anterior to the age as- 
signed to Romulus and Remus, when the massive 
Etruscan tombs were reared, and those temples 
built in Psestum, which, two thousand years ago, 
the Romans were accustomed to visit as antiquities. 
But they were a people all knowledge of whose lan- 
guage and records has perished. No Rosetta stone 
has yet been found to furnish a key to the literature 
of this mysterious race, and their existence is only 
known by the inscriptions, and sculptures, and 
vases, dug out of the earth, and filling the muse- 
ums of Italy, or by their rifled tombs presenting 
objects of curious study to the antiquarian. "We 
speak of them as the Etruscans, but beyond tliie 
everything with regard to them is a blank. 

It is supposed that by them these quarries may 
have been first opened, for there is a ma^iveness in 



30 THE CATACOMBS OF KOME. 

tli e character of their architecture which enables us 
at once to distinguish it, even from the earlier Ro- 
man. These ancient quarries abound, too, not only 
at Rome, but at Naples, and through all the south 
of Italy. They are traced, too, in Sicily, in Greece, 
in nearly all the Greek isles, and in Asia Minor; 
and perhaps the celebrated labyrinth in the island 
of Crete was formed originally by excavations of 
this kind. But they are never found except in the 
vicinity of some considerable and ancient city, or 
near the spot where some such city once stood. 

The Romans inherited the domains of this mys- 
terious race, and we find allusions to the Catacombs 
in their writers long before the Christian era. The 
great increase of the city in the latter days of the 
republic, led again to the working of quarries in the 
immediate neighborhood, to procure the materials 
necessary for building. The soil of the Campngna 
rests on tufa and puzzolana, a volcanic, sanely rock, 
easily quarried, and from its texture well adapted 
to the excavation of long galleries, while the Es- ' 
quiline hill was undermined to obtain sand for ma- 
king cement. These subterranean works were 
referred to by Cicero in his oration for Cluentius, 
when Asinius, a young Roman citizen, was in- 
veigled to the gardens of the Esquiline, and precip- 
itated into one of the sand-pits — "in arenarias 
quasdam extra portam Esquilinam." It was, too, 
in these caverns, Suetonius tells us, Nero was after- 
ward advised to conceal himself in his hour of dan- 
ger; on which occasion he made answer to his 
freedman, Phaon, that "he would not go under 
the ground while living." 



THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 31 

pin tins way it was that these crypts or galleries 
were first formed, until the whole subsoil on one 
side of Rome was in the course of time perforated 
by a network of excavations, which ultimately ex- 
tended to a distance of fifteen or, as some say, twen- 
ty miles. But when these quarries were exhausted 
of their original stores, they stood vacant, ready to 
be appropriated to any other use. And none, of 
course, would know their intricate windings but 
those whose hands had formed them, and by whose 
labor these excavations had been made. 

Then came the advent of the Christian faith. 
The arenariij or sand-diggers, and the workmen in 
the quarries, were persons of the lowest grade, and 
cut off by their occupation from the crowds in the 
busy city, probably formed a separate and distinct 
community. There is reason to believe, that Chris- 
tianity found among them its earliest proselytes, 
for its first followers everywhere were the lowest in 
k the social scale. These " hereditary bondsmen," in- 
deed, scarcely calling their lives their own in this 
world, would most naturally gladly welcome the 
hopes which dawned upon them from the world to 
come. One of the most common figures found por- 
trayed in nearly all these quarries — and which can 
easily be distinguished from the Christian order of 
the fossors — is that of a man carrying some imple- 
ment of labor, often for the purpose of excavation, 
and wearing the short tunic and scanty dress of the 
slave. In times of persecution, therefore, the con- 
verts employed in the subterranean passages had 
already provided for them a secure retreat, which 
also they opened to their brethren in the faith, until 



32 THE CATACOMBS OF KOME. 

it became the place of refuge of the Roman Church. 
In addition to this, we learn from a number of testi- 
monies, that the early Christians themselves, as a 
punishment for abandoning the ancient faith, were 
often sentenced to labor in these sand-pits. In the 
"Acts of the Martyrs," we are told, that the Em- 
peror Maximian " condemned all the Roman sol- 
diers, who were Christians, to hard labor ; and in 
various places set them to work, some to dig stones, 
others sand. He also ordered Ciriacns and Sisinnus 
to be strictly guarded, condemning them to dig sand, 
and to carry it on their shoulders." Thus it was 
that the members of the early Church, and they 
alone, became familiar with these winding recesses. 
"We can easily imagine how concealment in these 
gloomy labyrinths became practicable. The earli- 
est victims selected in a persecution would, of 
course, be those most prominent in the Church — 
its bishop, or ministers, or officers.* These, there- 
fore, would at once take refuge in the Catacombs, 
where the humbler members of the Church, whose 
obscurity for a time gave them safety, could easily 
supply them with all the necessaries of life. 
Springs, too, which still exist in various corridors, 
and wells — some of which are supposed to have 
been dug for the purpose of draining parts of the 
Catacombs — show some of the means by which life 
was preserved. 

* When, in 1809, Napoleon was pressing his demands upon Pius 
VII., that pontiff, in refusing to comply, said: "I shall make no re- 
sistance; I am ready to retire into a convent, or into the same Cata- 
combs of Rome that afforded shelter to the first successors of St. 
Peter." 



THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 33 

And may we not trace in this the hand of a pro- 
tecting Providence? The Church, was about to 
enter the furnace of affliction, and to be encircled 
by the rage of the adversaries ; here, then, had pre- 
viously been provided a sure refuge, where it could 
abide until the storm was overpast. This was the 
cradle of the infant community. And, perhaps, we 
may go a step farther, and assert, that while the 
church in Rome owed much of the rapidity of its 
triumph to the protection afforded by the Cata- 
combs, by furnishing a place of refuge where the 
faithful generally had a secure retreat, in later 
times the lessons taught by these ancient sepulchres 
must have long served to arrest the progress of in- 
novation, as the Roman Christians beheld recorded, 
before their eyes, evidences of the faith held "in 
their fathers' day, and in the old time before them." 
That the Catacombs were, throughout, well known 
to the early Christians, is evident; for all parts 
bear trace of their occupancy. "We meet on every 
side with tombs and chapels, paintings and inscrip- 
tions, and for three hundred years the entire Chris- 

\ tian population of Eome found sepulture in these 
recesses. 

"N^ The " Acts of the Martyrs" relate many attempts 
made by the persecutors of the early Christians, to 
trace them in these retreats. But the entrances 
were so numerous, scattered for miles over the 
Campagna, and the labyrinths below so compli- 
cated, and blocked up in various places, that pur- 
suit was generally useless. Occasionally, however, 
these efforts were successful, and the Catacombs be- 
came not only the burial-place of the martyrs, but 



34 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

also the scene of their last sufferings. In the time 
of Cyprian, Xystus, bishop of Rome, together with 
Qnartus, one of his clergy, poured out their blood 
on this spot; and Stephen, another bishop of Rome, 
was traced by the heathen soldiers to his subter- 
ranean chapel. They allowed him to conclude the 
service in which he was engaged, when he was 
thrust back into his episcopal chair, and thus be- 
headed.* 

In the life of this St. Stephen, the first Roman 
bishop of that name, there are many scenes con- 
nected with the Catacombs. It was there that he 
was obliged to pass much of his time, sending forth 
the priest Eusebius and the deacon Marcellus, to 
invite the faithful to come to him for personal con- 
ference. There he assembled his clergy and col- 
lected the neophytes, to instruct and baptize them. 
Among his followers was Hippolytus, a Christian 
of Rome, who had also taken refuge in the Cata- 
combs. His sister Paulina, and her husband Adri- 
as, both pagans, who were intrusted w T ith the secret 
of his retreat, supplied him with the requisites of 
life, by means of their two children, a boy of ten, 
and a girl of thirteen years of age. They were in 
the habit of repairing to their uncle's hiding-place 
at stated times, with a basket of provisions. Hip- 
polytus, sorrowing over the heathen darkness of his 
relatives, sought the venerable bishop, and con- 
sulted him on the subject of his painful solicitude. 
The advice he received was, to detain them on their 
next visit, in the hope that their parents, alarmed 
by their absence, would themselves seek them in 

* Baronius: Annals, torn, iii., p. 1Q. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 



35 



the Catacombs, when a favorable opportunity would 
be afforded for placing before them the claims of 
our faith. The expedient was adopted, and when 
the children next made their usual visit, they were 
easily persuaded to remain. Their parents, at the 
expiration of the ordinary interval, became alarmed, 
and hurried to the cemetery, where they found their 
son and daughter with St. Stephen, who used all his 
persuasive eloquence, but apparently in vain, to 
make them converts to the Christian faith. They 
retired unbelievers; but the good seed was sown. 
They returned again, at the request of the bishop, 
and after repeated meetings, and a course of in- 
struction, they and their children were baptized; 
and all four, as well as St. Stephen and Hippolytus, 
were honored with the crown of martyrdom and 
buried in the Catacombs.* 

St. Chrysostom, who although not living in the 
age of persecution, was near enough to it to receive 
its traditions in all their original freshness, uses on 
one occasion an illustration plainly drawn from 
these scenes. He speaks of " a lady unaccustomed 
to privation, trembling in a vault, apprehensive of 
the capture of her maid, upon whom she depends 
for her daily food." 

We have, too, the testimony of Prudentius, who 
also in a most graphic manner portrays these re- 
treats. After speaking of the care shown by the 
church in gathering the mangled remains of the 
martyr Hippolytus, he thus minutely describes the 
catacomb in which they are deposited : — 

* Baronius : Annals, torn, ill-, p. 09. 



36 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

" Haud procul extreme culta ad pomeria vallo, 
. Mersa latebrosis crypta.patet forcis, 

Hnjus in occultum gradibus via prona reflexis 

Ire per an fr actus luce latente docet ; 

Primas namque fores sum mo tenus intrat hiatu; 

Illustratque dies limina vestibuli. 

Inde ubi progressu facili nigrescere visa est 

IS"ox obscura loci per specus ambiguum, 

Occurrunt eelsis immensa foramina tectis, 

Quaa jaciunt claros antra super radios. 

Quamlibet ancipites texant hinc inde recessus, 

Arcta sub umbrosis atria porticibus; 

Attamen exeisi subter cava viscera montis 

Crebra terebrato fornice lux penetrat; 

Sic datur absentis per subterranea solis 

Cernere fulgorem luminibusque frui.* 

"Beyond the rampart, 'mid the garden-grounds, 
Darkles a crypt in the sequestered mine: 
With tortuous steps, a swift descent and prone, 
Dives down into its heart. The cavern's mouth 
Lies open freely to the day, and drinks 
A light that cheers the shadowy vestibule ; 
But, in its bosom, night, obscure and vast, 
Blackens around the explorer's way, nor yields 
Save where, down fissures slanting through the vaults, 
Clear rays, though broken, glance on roof and wall. 
On all sides spreads the labyrinth, woven dense 
"With paths that cross eaeh other; branching now 
In caverned chapels and sepulchral halls; 
But ever through the subterranean maze 
That light from fissure and from cleft looks down, 
Fruition granting of an absent sun." 

There is one inscription over the grave of a mar- 
tyr, which shows that lie was surprised by the emi- 
Baries of Antonine while praying in the Catacombs. 
The date of this event was during the fifth persecu- 

* Peristephanon : Hymn iv. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 37 

tion, iii the reign of the second Antonine (for the 
first was friendly to the Christians), which began 
in the year 161. We copy a portion only of the 
epitaph : — 

" GENVA ENIM FLECTENS VERO DEO SA 
CRIFICATVRVS AD SVPPLICIA DVCTTVRO 
TEMPORA INFAVSTA QVIBVS INTER SA 
CRA ET VOTA NE IN CAVERNIS QVIDEM 
SALYARI POSSIMVS" 

" For while on his knees, and about to sacrifice to the true God, 
he was led away to execution. O sad times! in which sacred rites 
and prayers, even in caverns, afford no protection to us !" 

The edicts of the Roman emperors, indeed, often 
referred to the cemeteries as places of worship. 
Such was the case when JEmilianus, a prsefect of 
Egypt during the persecution under Valerian, 
issued an edict, one sentence of w T hich was — 
" Moreover, it shall no longer be lawful for you or 
for others to hold assemblies, nor to enter the ceme- 
teries, as they are called." Orders to the same im- 
port were sent forth by Maximian, on the renewal 
of the Diocletian persecution, forbidding the Chris- 
tians to meet in the Catacombs. The attempt how- 
ever proved futile, and the followers of Christ still 
found a refuge in their accustomed places of meet- 
ing, until the adherents of the old religion, under 
the government of Ililario, were so exasperated 
that they demanded the destruction of the Cata- 
combs.* No effort was made, however, to carry 
this into effect, peace came once more at the close 
of the Valerian persecution, and when the Empe- 

* Tertullian, Ep. and Scapulam, cap. 5. 



38 THE CATACOMBS OF KOME. 

ror Gallieims sent forth an edict, declaring that the 
ministers of the faith might perform the customary 
duties of their office with freedom, particular refer- 
ence is made to the Catacombs which had been 
seized by his officers. He grants permission to the 
bishops, "to recover what are called the ceme- 
teries."* So well known at this time had become 
these caves as places of Christian worship. Even 
after the general establishment of Christianity, as 
late as the year 352, during a temporary persecu- 
tion by the Arians, Liberius, bishop of Rome, took 
up his abode in the cemetery of St. Agnes. 

" To our classic associations, indeed, Rome w r as 
still, under Trajan and the Antonines, the city of 
the Csesars, the metropolis of pagan idolatry — in 
the pages of her poets and historians we still linger 
among the triumphs of the Capitol, the shows of 
the Coliseum — or if we read of a Christian being 
dragged before the tribunal, or exposed to the 
beasts, we think of him as one of a scattered com- 
munity, few in number, spiritless in action, and 
politically insignificant. But all this while there 
was living beneath the visible, an invisible Rome 
— a population unheeded, unreckoned — thought 
of vaguely, vaguely spoken of, and with the fa- 
miliarity and indifference that men feel who live on 
a volcano, yet a population strong-hearted, of quick 
impulses, nerved alike to suffer or to die, and in 
numbers, resolution, and physical force, sufficient 
to have hurled their oppressors from the throne of 
the world, had they not deemed it their duty to 
kiss the rod, to love their enemies, to bless thoso 

* Eueebius : Hist. Eccles., lib. vii., cap. 13. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 39 

that cursed them, and to submit, for their Redeem- 
er's sake, to the ' powers that be.' Here, in these 
' dens and caves of the earth,' they lived ; here, 
they died — a 'spectacle' in their lifetime 'to men 
and angels,' and on their death a ' triumph' to man- 
kind — a triumph of which the echoes still float 
around the walls of Rome, and over the desolate 
Campagna, while those that once thrilled the Capi- 
tol are silenced, and the walls that returned them 
have long since crumbled into dust."* 

Thus, three centuries passed by, and Christianity 
emerging from these recesses, w r alked boldly on the 
soil beneath which she had so long been glad to 
seek concealment. Then, for a time, the Cata- 
combs were places which the Christians, now living 
in security, visited with reverence, as the scenes of 
their brethren's sufferings. St. Jerome thus speaks 
of them in the middle of the fourth century : u When 
I was at Rome," says the monk of Palestine, " still 
a youth, and employed in literary pursuits, I was 
accustomed, in company with others of my own 
age, and actuated by the same feelings, to visit on 
Sundays the sepulchres of the apostles and martyrs, 
and often to go down into the crypts dug in the 
heart of the earth, where the walls on either side 
are lined with the dead ; and so intense is the dark- 
ness, that we almost realize the words of the proph- 
et, 'They go down alive into Hades.' Here and 
there a scanty aperture, ill deserving the name of 
a window, admits scarcely light enough to mitigate 
the gloom which reigns below ; and as we advance 
through the shades with cautious steps, we are for- 

* Lord Lindsay's Christian Art, vol. i., p. 4. 



40 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

cibly reminded of the words of Virgil : c Hor- 
ror ubique amnios, simul ipsa silentia terrent. — 
Horror on all sides, even the silence terrifies the 
mind.'"* 

But these crypts became more than places to be 
visited by the curious with melancholy interest. 
"When " the calamities were overpast," and the 
true-hearted needed no longer for safety to " wan- 
der in dens and caves of the earth," reverence for 
these dark abodes which had been the scenes of the 
sufferings and constancy of those from whom they 
had inherited their faith, was witnessed in their 
still continuing to be selected as places of sepulture. 
Compelled, no longer by the rage of the adversary, 
to spend their lives in these gloomy retreats, they 
turned to them in the hour of death, and enjoined 
that their last resting-place should be with the mar- 
tyrs in this terra sancta. Popes and prelates, kings 
and queens, emperors and empresses, the highest in 
rank and the most devout in life, or most penitent 
in death, were for some centuries interred in these 
crypts, in the neighborhood of the tombs of Roman 
slaves and criminals, Christian laborers and hewers 
of stone, and the early martyrs. Even from the re- 
mote parts of Europe, the bodies of illustrious per- 
sons were carried thither for sepulture, as, a few 
centuries later, princes and nobles commanded in 
their wills, that their bodies, or, at least, their 
hearts, should be carried to Palestine and buried 
in the Holy Land. The following are a few of the 
illustrious dead who were inhumed in the Eoman 
Catacombs during the Middle Ages : — 

* Hieronymus in Ezechiel, cap. xl. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 41 

Anaclitus, fifth bishop of Rome. 

Pope Leo 1. 

Pope Gregory the Great, who first undertook the conversion of 
the Anglo-Saxons. 

Popes Gregory II. and III. 

Pope Leo IX. He died A. D. 1050, and was the last pope buried 
in the Catacombs. 

The Emperor Honorius. 

The Emperor Valentinian. 

The Emperor Otho II. 

Cedwalla, a king of the Western Saxons. 

Conrad, a king of the Mercians. 

Offa, a Saxon king. 

Ina, a king of the Anglo-Saxons, with Queen Eldiburga, his wife. 

The Princess Mary, daughter of Stilicho, and wife of the Empe- 
ror Honorius. 

The Empress Agnes. 

The unfortunate Charlotte, queen of Cyprus. 

The celebrated Countess Matilda, who lived in the twelfth cen- 
tury, and to whom the Roman see was much indebted for the in- 
crease of its wealth and territorial possessions.* 

But it was not long after the firm establishment 
\jof Christianity as the religion of the state, that the 
flood of barbarian invasion rolled over Italy, when 
neither works of art, or holy places, or consecrated 
churches, were respected by their rude northern 
conquerors. When the army of the Huns under 
Attila, and then that of the Goths under Totila, 
were gathered about the walls of Rome, pressing 
its siege, they ransacked the Catacombs and tore 
open the graves, in the hope of finding buried 
treasures. And these were followed by the Lom- 

* This list is given by Macfarlane, p. 36. He has taken it from 
that of the Abbe" Gaume, Les Trois Homes, v. iv., p. 39. Arringhi 
has also devoted a chapter to this subject, in which he gives sub- 
stantially the 6ame catalogue : " De imperatoribus ac regibus, qui 
apud Vaticanum sepulturae traditi sunt." — Lib. ii., cap. 9. 



49 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

bards and Saracens, and other devastators. Each 
added to the desecrations, until the Catacombs were 
necessarily deserted by the Christian population of 
Rome. Burials ceased in the crypts, and services 
in the chapels, until the neglected caverns were 
left to bats and obscure birds and beasts, or became 
the hiding-places of runaway debtors, thieves, and 
'/banditti. The Roman peasants avoided them in 
dread, or when, on their way to and from the mar- 
ket-places of the city, they were obliged to pass the 
mouths of the caverns under the Esquiline mount, 
they did so in companies, hurrying by with trem- 
bling steps, as they muttered a prayer, or chanted 
a psalm or Hymn. 

Then came the tumultuous times of the Middle 
Ages, when the country was surrendered up to the 
warfare of factious nobles and an unruly populace, 
when often, for long seasons, all was utter anarchy, 
and in the language of Dante — 

" Never was Romagna without war 
In her proud tyrants' bosoms." 

Every tomb and monument was turned into a 
fortress, and the visiter to Rome can still see about 
them the remains of these mediaeval battlements. 
The Frangipani held the massive arch of Janus Qu- 
drifons and the Coliseum; the Orsini, the tomb of 
Hadrian, and the theatre of Pompey ; the Colonna 
family, the mausoleum of Augustus and the baths 
of Constantine; the tomb of Csecilia Metella was 
converted into a fortress by the Savelli and the 
(^cetani; the ruins of the Capitol were held by 
the Corsi ; the Quirinal by the Conti ; and the 
Pantheon by the garrison of the popes. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 43 

It was not to be expected therefore that the Cata- 
combs should escape the same desecration. The 
contests of the feudal retainers of these warlike 
nobles penetrated even to these secluded caverns, 
conspiracies were arranged in their dark recesses, 
and armed insurgents assembled there, to wait for 
reinforcements from the neighboring towns and 
villages, and for the fierce banditti from the moun- 
tains. During that long contest between the pow- 
erful families of Colonna and Orsini, the combats 
between their vassals and retainers took place, not 
only on the Esquiline mount, but also in the caverns 
beneath. The awfulness of the spot, the dread pres- 
ence of the departed, and the emblems of religion, 
imposed no restraints upon the furious combatants, 
but often these dark passages rang with the rival 
w r ar cries — u The Colonna! the Colonna!" and 
" Beware the bear's hug!" So too was it when 
Sciarra Colonna seized Pope Boniface and made 
him prisoner in his own palace. He had called 
down from the mountains of the Abruzzi, and his 
other fiefs and castles in the Apennines, bands of 
fierce retainers, who arrived in small parties, and 
to prevent suspicion concealed themselves in these 
caverns until their leader could summon them 
forth at the moment for action. \f 

Nor was the case different when in the next age 
the papal court was removed to Avignon, during 
the seventy years which Petrarch calls "the Baby- 
lonian captivity." Then, a darker ruin gathered 
about the Imperial city. The country around was 
inundated, and the stagnant wafers, mixed with 
decomposed vegetable matter, evaporated under 



44 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

the intense summer sun, until the whole neighbor- 
hood of the city, where the openings of the Cata- 
combs \v T ere situated, became a prey to the v most 
deadly malaria. At certain seasons these passages 
were occupied by shepherds and their flocks, while 
spending the winter months in grazing on the 
wide-spread Campagna, but ordinarily they seem 
to have been the resorts of robbers and felons. 
This is the testimony of Petrarch : — 

" They are become like robbers' caves, 
So that only the good are denied entrance; 
And among altars and saintly statues, 
Every cruel enterprise seems to be concerted."* 

Amid the revolutions caused by the efforts of 
Cola di Rienzi, " the last of the Tribunes," the Cata- 
combs are again mentioned as places of muster and 
concealment, and one of the old chroniclers tells us, 
that when the final hour of the Tribune had come, 
and the furious populace were gathered against 
him, being advised by some of his friends to take 
temporary refuge in the Catacombs, he answered, 
as Nero had done thirteen hundred years, before, 
that "lie would not bury himself alive." y 

Yet even in the darkest times, when most persons 
shunned the Catacombs as places of danger, there 
seem to have been some who, moved by piety or 
curiosity, occasionally visited the few crypts which 
were most accessible, and left behind them, on the 
walls or tombstones, brief inscriptions, hastily and 

* " Quasi spelunca di ladron son fatti, 

Tal ch' a buon solamente uscio si chiude ; 
E tra le altari, e tra statue ignude, 
Ogni impressa crudel par che 6i tratti." 

CANZONE/ XI. 



.,.. 



THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 45 



slightly cut, to record their visits. Thus we find in 
one place, a few words denoting that a Bishop of 
Pisa and his companions had been there at the be- 
ginning of the fourteenth century ; and in another 
place are traced the names of six individuals — Ger- 
man names, Latinized — with the sign of the cross 
after each name, and the date, A. D., 1397, under- 
neath them all. On one of the early Christian 
tombs, too, were found a palm-leaf worked in sil- 
ver, and a small coronet of silver, gilded and in- 
scribed with a name, and the date 1340. They had 
been concealed and preserved by the pozzolano 
and earth falling upon them and burying them. In 
another crypt was found this inscription, with the 
date 1321 above it, and the names of three visi- 
ters beneath it : " Gather together, O Christians, in 
these caverns, to read the holy books, to sing hymns 
to the honor of martyrs and the saints that here lie 
buried, having died in the Lord; to sing psalms 
for those who are now dying in the faith. There is 
light in this darkness. There is music in these 
tombs."* 

It is evident that, during these ages, these sanctu- 
aries of the ancient Church were gradually forgot- 
ten. The mouths of most of the Catacombs were 
blocked up by the accumulation of rubbish, by the 
falling in of the tufa and earth over the arches, or 
by the rapid growth of gigantic weeds, dense bushes, 
and trees. It required constant use to preserve a 
knowledge of their intricate windings, and there- 
fore a few only of the principal entrances were 

* For many of these facts with regard to the Middle Ages we are 
indebted to Macfarlane, p. 36. 



46 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

kept open. Even these gradually became neglected, 
until the Church scarcely remembered her ancient 
home. It was not until the sixteenth century that, 
through the labors of Bosio, the entire range of the 
Catacombs was reopened, after being untouched for 
more than a thousand years. They were found to 
be a vast treasury, rich in memorials of saints and 
martyrs — an enduring testimony, every page of 
which bore witness to the truth of Christian history, 
and recorded in letters " graven on the rock," the 
trials and persecutions of the early Church. Then, 
when the revival of letters enabled the learned to 
profit by the discovery, investigations commenced, 
which have been prosecuted to the present day, as 
the question has been agitated, whether Rome 
shall be permitted to claim identity in discipline 
and doctrine with these ancient disciples, who have 
thus bequeathed to us the memorials of their faith 
and sufferings. 

Such is the history of the Catacombs. These dark 
and gloomy passages once formed the cradle of the 
Christian faith in Europe. As one age of perse- 
cution after another drew its dark pall over the 
Church, it was here that the true-hearted found 
their place of refuge — their impregnable fortress 
against the might of pagan Rome. These narrow 
passages "rang with their hymns of lofty cheer" — 
here, they were trained for those victories which 
" wrote their names among the stars ;" and when 
the conflict was over, here their brethren laid them 
to their rest, in the very spot which had been so 
often hallowed by their prayers. " And their sep- 
ulchres are with us unto this day." 



III. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS, 



III. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS. 

In the account of our visit to the Catacombs, we 
have somewhat anticipated the general features of 
these retreats. We will endeavor, however, to give 
a more particular description, to enable our readers 
to understand their connection with primitive times, 
and the nature of the testimony they bear to early 
faith. 

"We have mentioned the manner in which these 
winding passages are excavated from the rock. 
They are stated b}^ D'Agincourt, to follow the di- 
rection of the veins of pozzolano ; but this is a point 
which it would be difficult to prove. Nor can we 
at this day tell their extent ; as the very intricacy 
of their crossings and recrossings, together with the 
danger of passages caving in so as to render a re- 
turn impossible, would be sufficient to prevent their 
thorough exploration. In the sacristy of St. Sebas- 
tian hangs a map of the passages for a few miles, 
the very sight of whose complicated turnings would 
be sufficient to extinguish any such wish in one 
who had a regard for his life. Arringhi, in his 

3 



50 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

"Roma Subterranea," gives a plan of a portion — ■ 
that known as the Cemetery *of St. Calixtus — 
which we have copied.* 

They are said by some writers to extend as far as 
Ostia, nearly twenty miles distant. f It is certain 
that many miles from the Church of St. Sebastian 
there are openings into the Catacombs, but whether 
they communicate with those which are entered at 
that place, it is impossible to determine. The prob- 
ability is, that all this section of country without 
the gates of Rome is excavated so as to form a per- 
fect labyrinth of passages. They resemble a sub- 
terranean city with its streets and alleys, and so 
encircle the walls, that they have been called " the 
encampment of the Christian host besieging pagan 
Rome, and driving inward its mines and trendies 
with an assurance of final victory." 

In the twelfth century, Petrus Mailing enumer- 
ated nineteen of these cemeteries. Another writer, 
in the next century, counted twenty-one, and in 
dwelling on their extent, says: " There are Cata- 
combs that run three miles under ground ; it was 
in these that the holy martyrs concealed themselves 
in times of persecution." In the sixteenth century, 
Panvini counted thirty-nine, and gave the distinc- 
tive name of each; while the latest writer on this 
subject, the Abbe Gerbet,+ asserts that they amount 

* See Frontispiece. 

f "They are continued underground, as is said, twenty miles to 
Ostia, the port of Rome, at the mouth of the Tiber, in one direction, 
and to Albano, twelve miles in another." — Visit to Europe, by Pro- 
fessor Silliman, vol. i., p. 329. 

\ Esquisse de Rome Chrtticnne, vol. ii. ; Paris, 1850. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS. 51 

to fifty.* This enumeration, however, is very un- 
certain, as openings into the Catacombs being scat- 
tered all over the country, it is impossible to tell 
whether they are separate excavations, or connected 
by crypts and galleries. / 

The character of the Catacombs is always the 
same, and answers the description given by Baro- 
nius of the cemetery of Priscilla, which was dis- 
covered in his day near the Yia Latina. Speaking 
of Dion's account of the subterranean passages 
made by the Jews in Jerusalem, as places of safe- 
ty, on their revolt against Hadrian, he remarks : 
" This description of Dion's of the underground pas- 
sages made by the Jews, is also precisely applicable 
to the cemeteries once constructed at Rome, in the 
caverns of the arenaria ; which were not only used 
for the purpose of burying the dead (whence they 
derive their name), but likewise in time of persecu- 
tion as a hiding-place for Christians* Wonderful 
places are these ! We have seen and often explored 
the cemetery of Priscilla, lately discovered and 
cleared on the Salarian Way, at the third mile- 
stone from the city. This, from its extent, and its 
many various paths, I call by no more appropriate 
name than a subterranean city. From the entrance 
onward opens out a principal street, wider than the 
rest. Others diverge from it at frequent intervals; 
these again are separated off into narrower ways 
and blind alleys. Moreover, as is the case in cities, 
broader spaces open out in particular spots, each 
like a kind of forum, for holding the sacred assem- 
blies ; these are adorned with images of tlie saints. 

* Maefarlanc y p. 60. 



52 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

Apertures have likewise been pierced (though now 
blocked up), for receiving the light from above. 
The city was amazed at discovering that she had in 
her suburbs long-concealed towns, now filled only 
with sepulchres, but once Christian colonies in days 
of persecution ; and she then more fully understood 
what was read in documents, or seen in other ceme- 
teries partially laid open. From what she had read 
of these places in St. Jerome, or in Prudentius, she 
gazed upon them with lively astonishment when 
she beheld them with her own eyes."* 

We have already spoken of the visit of Thomas 
Cole, the artist, to the Catacombs of St. Agnes. In 
his recently published works, we find the following 
account — unfortunately all that he has left — of 
this interesting passage in his life : — 

"I have seen tljaJ; to-day, which will be a lasting 
subject of thought — which has made an impression 
on my mind that can never be effaced — the Cata- 
combs of St. Agnes. I went in the company of Mr. 

Greene, the consul, Mr. G , Mr. P , and the 

padre, who has the charge of the excavations, and 
has made a plan of the subterranean labyrinth. 
The sky was cloudless, and before we entered the 
gloomy regions of the dead, we stood for some time 
in the vineyard, gazing at the mountains that rise 
around the Campagna di Eoma. The entrance, 
about two miles out of the Porta Pia, is by a flight 
of steps, partly antique, I believe. At the bottom, 
we found ourselves in a narrow passage cut in the 
tufa rock. On either hand were excavations in the 
walls, of various dimensions, which contain the 

* Ad. an., 130. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS. 53 

bones of the early Christians. For two hours, we 
wandered in these gloomy regions. Now and then 
we came to a chapel. The passages were, in gen- 
eral, about six feet wide, and from five to twelve 
high, arched, and sometimes plastered. The cells 
are in tiers, one above another. Many of them 
were open, and disclosed the mouldering bones of 
those who flourished in the first centuries of the 
Christian Church. Others were closed by tiles, or 
slabs of marble with cement, which appeared with 
the impressions of the trowel as fresh as yesterday. 
Here were the remains of the early martyrs of 
Christianity. | You know them by the small lamp, 
and the little phial or vase which once contained 
some of their blood. These vessels were inserted 
in the cement that sealed up their graves. Impres- 
sions of coins and medals, the date of the inter- 
ment, are also to be seen in the cement, with in- 
scriptions marked with the point of the trowel, 
usually the name of the individual, with the words, 
' in pace,' or ' dormit'in pace?- What pictures can 
not the imagination paint here! Yet nothing so 
impressive as the reality ; scenes where Christian 
hope triumphed over affliction ; where the cere- 
monies of their holy religion were performed far 
from the light of day. \The chapels are generally 
ornamented with pictures, some of which are in 
good preservation. They are rudely executed, but 
with some spirit One picture represented Moses 
striking the rock ; another, Daniel in the lion's den ; 
another, the three holy children in the fire ; and still 
another, the Virgin Mary. There were several pic- 
tures which represented bishops or priests — men 



54 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

in clerical robes. Occasionally the dripping of 
the water formed stalactites upon the walls and 
ceilings. Some of the bones were coated with cal- 
careous deposit^) 

"Some notion of the extent of the Catacombs 
may be formed from the length of time we were 
walking. There were many passages we did not 
enter, and many impossible of access from the nib-' 
bish with which they were choked up. We came 
into the open air — into the light of the glorious 
sun — and again stood and gazed upon the moun- 
tains. There they are, as eighteen hundred years 
ago ; they are not changed. As they looked then, 
they look now.''* 

Some of the larger galleries are in height about 
eight or ten feet, and the width from four to six, 
but the lateral passages are much more contracted 
in their dimensions. On each side are the graves 
cut into the walls, either in a straggling line, or in 
tiers one above the other, sometimes amounting 
to six in number. A single glance at the accom- 
panying engraving (for which we are indebted to 
Maitland), will give a better idea of these passages 
than an elaborate description. 

"We have represented, on the opposite page, the 
opening of one of the larger galleries. The day- 
light is seen pouring in at the mouth of the cav- 
ern, showing the rifled sepulchres. 

" The tombs contain no ashes now; 

The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
Of. then* heroic dwellers." 

* Life and Works of Thomas Cole, by Rev. L. L. Noble, p. 818. 



56 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

Beneath the most distant of these is a square 
hole, which once probably contained a cup. On 
the right is a lateral passage, blocked up to prevent 
"accidents, so liable to happen to those who might 
wander away and be lost in these intricate windings. 

In some places the passages expand into the 
apartments mentioned by Baronius, which traditions 
state to have been intended as places of worship by 
the proscribed and suffering followers of our Lord. 
In one of these little chapels, which tradition has 
thus consecrated, we saw still remaining, a simple 
earthen altar, and an antique cross cut in the rock 
above it. It was with no ordinary feelings that we 
stood on this spot and looked on these evidences of 
early worship. In this gloomy cavern the follow- 
ers of our Lord were accustomed to meet in secret 
to eat the bread of life, and with bitter tears to 
drink the water of life. What solemn services must 
this spot have witnessed ! "With what a depth of 
feeling must they have heard of the Resurrection, 
surrounded by the dead in Christ, and the symbols 
of that hidden and eternal life which lies beyond 
the grave ! How earnest the prayers which were 
here poured forth by men, whose faith was certain, 
because they had received it from the lips of apos- 
tles themselves, and glowed more brightly because 
they stood in jeopardy every hour ! These relics of 
their worship may perhaps have remained here un- 
changed, since the name of Jesus of Nazareth was 
first uttered as a strange sound in the neighboring 
city, and where we w r ere, men may have bowed in 
prayer who had themselves seen their Lord in the 
flesh. The remains were around us of those who 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS. 57 

I 

had. received the mightiest of all consecrations, 
that of suffering, and whose spirits were as noble 
as any who had their proud monuments on the 
Appian Way, and whose names are now as "fa- 
miliar in our ears as household words." But no 
historian registered the deeds of the despised Naz- 
arenes. They had no poet, and they died. \l 

" Carent quia vate sacro." 

A stone chair formerly stood in this little chapel, 
but it >vas unfortunately removed to Pisa by Cosmo 
III., of Tuscany. 

The earliest of these chapels, like the one we 
have just mentioned, were of the simplest form, 
evidently mere enlargements of the gallery into an 
oblong or square chamber, often lined with graves 
on every side. Others, probably of later construc- 
tion, were more elevated, with a hole pierced 
through to the soil above for light and airV\ Some 
of these openings in the roof are the holes to which 
we have already referred, as scattered over the 
Campagna and frequently mentioned in the "Acts 
of the Martyrs." In one place, for instance, they 
tell us of Candida, a saint and virgin, who was 
thrown down the light hole of the crypt and over- 
whelmed with stones. 

V*When the days of persecution had passed and 
these places became objects of superstitious rever- 
ence, the custom began of ornamenting these 
chapels with architecture and more elaborate fres- 
co paintings. We are told that, before the year 
400, the tomb of Hippolytus had been adorned with 
Parian marble and precious metals. The roof was 

8* 



58 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



extended and vaulted, and the skill of the artist ex- 
hausted in representing sacred subjects on the walls?) 
Arringhi has numerous engravings of chapels when 
thus changed, by the taste of later times, one of 
which we copy, to show at a glance the wide dif- 
ference between their appearance and that which 
they bore in earlier days as represented in the last 
engraving we gave. In this we have instances of 
the " arched monument" — a grave cut like a sar- 
cophagus from the rock and an arch constructed 
above it. 




In one case, copied by Maitland, the sarcopha- 
gus or case for the body, at the end of the chapel, 
was separated from it by a cancellated slab of mar- 
ble, which is now broken. 

The largest of these chapels are in the cemetery 
of St. Agnes. One of them, it is estimated, would 
hold eighty persons. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS. 59 



The graves were originally closed by a thin piece 
of marble, often of most irregular figure, or some- 
times by slabs of terra-cotta, cemented to the rock 
by plaster. In the subjoined engravings, copied 
originally by Boldetti, we' have a view of two 
graves, the first of which is closed by three pieces 
of cotta, while the latter is partially opened, so that 
the skeleton lying within can be seen. The palm 
branch and cup have been rudely scratched upon 
the stone. It was thus on these slabs, were cut the 
Christian emblems which the early followers of our 
Lord so much delighted to use, and there too they 
scrawled the brief epitaphs by which, in that age 



60 



TIIK CATACOMBS OF ROMK. 




of fear and persecution, they marked the resting- 
place of the brethren. While everything around 
speaks of suffering, it tells also of the simple ear- 
nest faith of men, with whom the glories of the 
next world had swallowed up all the pains of their 
brief mortal pilgrimage. 

Our guide pointed out to us, as we passed along, 
some tombs which had never been opened, and 
whose inmates had been left to slumber as they 
were laid to their rest seventeen centuries ago. 
There was one the thin marble side of which had 
cracked, so that he could insert a small taper. He 
bade us look in, and there we saw the remains of 
the skeleton, lying as it was placed by its brethren 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS. 61 

in the faith in those early days of persecution and 
trial. In some passages are unfinished tombs, which 
the workmen never completed ; and, Boldetti tells 
us, he found places where sepulchres had been 
sketched upon the walls, but their excavation never 
even begun. He states, too, that when some were 
opened for the first time, in his presence, he per- 
ceived an odor like that of spices* And this is in 
accordance w T ith what we know of primitive usages- 
That the anointing of the bodies of their friends 
with " sweet spices,"* to prepare them for their 
burial, was the custom of the early Christians, we 
learn not only from Scripture, but at a later day 
from Tertullian. When answering the objection, 
that the new religion was unfavorable to commerce, 
he says: "Is not incense brought from a distance? 
If Arabia should cpmplain, tell the Sabeans that 
more of their merchandise, and that of a more ex- 
pensive quality, is employed in burying Christians 
than in fumigating the gods."f 

There is another circumstance connected with 
these cemeteries, which we can not but notice. It 
is the fact, that Christianity first introduced the 
custom of common burial-places for persons of 
every grade, and connected with each other only 
by the profession of the same faith. With the 
higher class of pagans, sepulchres were appropri- 
ated only to the members of the same family — as 
the tomb of the Scipios, which still remains on the 

* Mark, xvi., 1. 

f Apologeticuft, cap. 42. Arringhi devotes an entire chapter to 
this subject: 4 * Cadavera unguentis, ct aromatibus condiuntur." 
Roma Subterranea, lib. i., cap. 23. 



62 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

Appian Way, not far from St. Sebastian — while 
Horace speaks with undisguised contempt of the 
" common sepulchre" w T hich was intended for the 
dregs of the people. \ Even the history of each Jew- 
ish patriarch generally concludes with the declara- 
tion — "He was buried with his fathers." Christi- 
anity first broke down these narrow distinctions — 
introduced a nobler relationship than that of blood 
— taught that in Christ Jesus all are one ; and here 
we find them sleeping side by side, old men and 
children, young men and maidens, all claiming 
brotherhood to each other only in the Church of 
their Lord. See how in the two inscriptions, 
which follow, the extremes of life are brought to- 
gether. The Latinity in the first is so barbarous as 
to be hardly intelligible, but we give a fac-simile 
to show what it is. The epitaph is now on the 
wall of the Lapidarian Gallery. 

X 

A\RTW R U S 

UIXLTA/Vl/D/V 

XQIELEXJTD 
0/W/VWIC5INPACE 

" Martyrius vixit annos XCI 
Elexit doraum vivus. In pace. 
" In Christ, Martyrius lived ninety-one years. 
He chose this spot during his life. In peace." 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS. 63 

Then follows one on an infant of a few months — 



J&SAN-ON QVI VIXII MEN 

SES JfcjII NON OCT ^ 




It is impossible to form any idea of the numbers 
who are interred in these Catacombs. The earliest 
date which has been verified, is in the time of Ves- 
pasian, that is, not forty years after the crucifixion. 
VCVESPASIANO III COS IAN. 

There is another epitaph of the same period on an 
architect, who, after having been in the service of 
the Emperor Vespasian, was put to death by his 
order on account of his belief in Christianity.* 
The earliest Consular date is of the year 98. An- 
other refers to the consulship of Surra and Senecio, 
which was in the year 107 : — 

N XXX SVRRA ET SENEC. COSS. 

It is an inscription rudely scratched on the mortar 
which overspreads the mouth of the niche.f There 
probably, however, are many slumbering around 
who were interred long before these periods. But 
from the time that these passages were first used 
for this purpose, till after the year 400, we know 
that the whole Christian population of Rome found 
here their burial-place. At an early period the 
number of Christians was so great in Rome, as to 
give rise to complaints that the shrines and temples 
of the gods were deserted. Y And yet the Imperial 

* Rock's Hierurgia, vol. ii., 808. f Boldetti, p. 79. 



6i THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

city at this time was peopled by more than one 
million of inhabitants. AVe can judge, therefore, 
how numerous must have been the Christians, and 
of course the interments, in a city which was open 
to such a charge. And it was more than a century 
before these cemeteries were disused for this pur- 
pose, that Constantine avowed the Christian faith, 
from which day we know that the number of its 
open disciples was necessarily very much increased.) 
In times, too, of persecution, multitudes w£re~at 
once hurried to their long home. A single extract 
from Prudentius, in his hymn, thus sets forth .the 
fact most clearly, as he describes the appearance 
of the Catacombs in his day : — 

"Innurneros cineres sanctorum Romula in urbe 
Vidimus, O Christi Valeriane saeer. 
Incisos tumulis titulos, et singula quaeris 
Xomina? difficile est ut replicare queam. 
Tantos justorum populos furor impius hausit, 
Quam coleret patrios Troja Roma deos. 
Phirima litterulis signata sepulchra loquuntur 
Martyris aut nomen, aut epigramma aliquod. 
Sunt et muta tamen tacitas claudentia tumbas 
Marmora, quae solum significant numerum. 
Quanta virum jaceant congestis corpora acervis, 
>~osse licet, quorum nomina nulla legas ? 
Sexaginta illic, defossas mole sub una, 
Reliquias memini mc didicesse hominum : 
Quorum solus habet comperta vocabula Christus,* 

"Around the walls where Romulus once reigned, 
"We see, Valerian, countless relics of the saints. 
You ask, What epitaphs are graven on these tombs? 
The names of those who there are laid to rest? 
A question difficult for me to answer 1 
For in the olden times of heathen i\ . 

* Peristephanon : Hymn xi. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CATACOMBS. 65 

" So great a Christian host was swept away, 
When Rome would have her country's gods adored. 
Yet in some martyr's sepulchre his name is seen, 
Or else some anagram his friends have carved. 
There too are silent tombs which dumb stones close, 
Telling us nothing but the number buried there. 
And thus we know how many rest below, 
Though names and appellations all are lost. 
Beneath one single mount some sixty lie, 
Though Christ alone has kept the record of these names. 
As being those of his peculiar friends." 

Thus it is that now, as we stand in these passages, 
we feel that around us is a " multitude which no 
man can number." Little do the dwellers in mod- 
ern Home think, that for every one who treads their 
streets, there are hundreds sleeping in those gloomy 
caverns, which everywhere surround the Eternal 
city and perforate the very soil on which it stands. 
Yet so it is. The ground has been drunk with the 
blood of martyrs, and the earth on which we tread 
is rich w T ith the garnered_dust of countless saints 
whose record has utterly perished from the land 
which was once hallowed by their footsteps. 

" All that tread 

The earth are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom." 



IV. 



INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



IV. 

THE INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 

There is an old Arabian fable, of a city whose 
inhabitants at once were turned to stone. The 
maiden at the fountain, the guest in the hall, the 
listless wanderer in the streets, all were arrested 
without a moment's w r arning, and in the posture in 
which the stroke found them, were transmuted at 
once into marble statues/) And there the city stood 
in the desert, with the stillness of the grave resting 
on it, everything unchanged, as age after age swept 
over it. At last came a chance traveller, and for 
the first time in centuries its deserted streets echoed 
to the tread of human footsteps, as he w T andered on 
through palace, and temple, and hall, with none to 
answer his summons — none to oppose his entrance 
— gazing in wonder on the memorials of generations 
which had lived ages before, to the possession of 
which none had succeeded, and, therefore, they had 
remained unaltered. 

In our day, the deserted cities of Ilerculaneum 
and Pompeii almost furnish a reality to this fable. 
There, we are at once transported back to the first 



THE CAXA0O9EH ME. 

century of the Christian era. We enter hon- 
which it seems as if the lordly Roman had but j 
quitted. His paintings, and statues, and inanuscrh 
are about us. The sentinel still stands at the p 
he dared not leave, even when the burning cind- 
were raining about him, and the skeleton : 
hollow in his armor, the strigil lies on the pavement 
of the bath, as the frightened slave dropped it, 
when he fled, and in the bedroom is the rouge with 
which the faded beau inpeii once restored 

her charms. W ;n all sides of us. the charac- 

ter of that now forgotten civilization, which spread 
charm over these gay Campanian cities. The 

great gnlf," which separ fees ufl from the days of 
Pliny, is bridged over. The intervening re 

forgotten. We live among those who for nearly 
eighteen centuries have been dnst — we understand 
h arrangement of their domestic life — and i* re- 
quires an effort to recall our minds to the realit: 
of the living present. 

What these long buried cities display fee 
the social condition of the ancients, the Catacombs 
reveal with regard to the Church of that day. 
:le we often read, in the remains of Pompeii, a 
commentary on the tin ivenal or Horace, in 

the ins tfl which mark the tombs of the ea: 

Chi nnd a confirmation of ranch that v 

written by the Fathers of the first three eenturu 
The same spirit pervades the- :ds graven in 

the rock, and the ean> b which those leaders 

of the Church sent forth to cheer their I - in 

the faith. The two harmonize in tone, and remain 



THE INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 71 

to rebuke the changes which after-ages gradually 
brought about 
(But few of the inscriptions now remain in the 
accessible parts of the Catacombs. Some years 
ago, most of them were removed to a hall in the 
Vatican, which from its containing little besides 
sepulchral stones, is called the Zapidarian, or delle 
lapidi. The side of this long corridor is completely 
lined with them, fastened against the wall to the 
number of more than three thousand. The letters 
on the Christian monuments are generally cut into 
the stone, and are from half an inch to four inches 
in height. On some of them, the incision is colored 
with a pigment, resembling Venitian red. It is to 
these inscriptions in the stone that Prudentius 
refers, when in his hymn in honor of the eighteen 
martyrs of Saragossa, he speaks of washing with 
pious tears the furrows in the marble tablets erected 
to them : — 

M Nos pio fletu, perhiamus 
Marmorum sulcos -." 

On the opposite side of the same hall are fastened 
the monumental inscriptions of pagan Rome, gath- 
ered from the ruins of the surrounding city. We 
turn to them, and we have before us the fragment- 
ary records of Rome in her most glorious days. 
We see the epitaphs of those whose deeds made 
her history, and who endeavored thus, by the en- 
during marble, to record their protest against the 
influence of "Time's effacing finger." And beside 
these are votive tablets, dedications of altars, frag- 
ments of edicts and public documents, all 'classed 



72 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

under the divisions of Greek, Latin, and consular 
monuments. 

"I have spent," says Raoul Rochette, "many- 
entire days in this sanctuary of antiquity, where 
the sacred and profane stand facing each other, in 
the written monuments preserved to us, as in the 
days when paganism and Christianity, striving 
with all their powers, were engaged in mortal con- 
flic^ " * * And were it only the treasure of im- 
pressions which we receive from this immense col- 
lection of Christian epitaphs, taken from the graves 
of the Catacombs, and now attached to the walls 
of the Vatican, this alone would be an inexhausti- 
ble fund of recollections and enjoyment for a whole 
life."* 

It is interesting to mark the difference between 
the two sides of the gallery. We are at once trans- 
ported back through eighteen centuries, and see 
before us the w T ide social gulf which separated the 
adherents of the two religions, when Christianity 
first went forth to challenge to itself the sway of 
the earth. On the pagan side we have the pride 
and pomp of life, when under the old religion the 
civil and ecclesiastical states were so closely en- 
twined together. There are the lofty titles of Ro- 
man citizenship — the traces of complicated political 
orders, and the funeral lamentations over Rome's 
mightiest and best — all neatly graven on the mar- 
ble, and often in hexameters which will bear the 
scrutiny of the scholar.! We see everywhere the 
evidences of a dominant faith, secure in its position 
before the world, proud in its authority and re- 
sources. 

* Tableau des Cataco?nbes, p. x. 



THE INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 73 

/We turn to the Christian side of the corridor, and 
Uqw marked the contrast ! There are the simple 
records of the poor, in accordance with no classical 
rules, appealing to the feelings rather than to the 
taste, to the heart and not to the head.^ An inco- 
herent sentence, or a straggling, misspelt scrawl, 
betray haste and ignorance in their very execution. 
The Latinity of these epitaphs would shock a cul- 
tivated reader, the orthography is generally faulty, 
the letters irregular, and the sense not always ob- 
vious. The first glance is enough to show, that, as 
St. Paul expresses it, "not many mighty, not manj^ 
noble," were numbered among those, who, in the 
first age of our faith, were here laid to their rest. 
Such is the inscription : — 



]*f Ac* 



DOMITI 

IN PACE 

LEA FECIT. 



Domitius in peace. Lea erected this. 

Roughly carved upon the slab, over which its 
letters straggle with no attention to order, it tells 
plainly that it was placed there by the members 
of a persecuted and oppressed community?) 

So, too, is it with the following : — 



Leguriu8 Successua, in peace. 

4 



74 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



f 



.TV * 



IpcYSPMMI §>$> 




The place of Primus. 

Or tliis, which records the names of three indi- 
viduals, and bears also the figure of the Good Shep- 
herd, carrying a lamb : — 




Septimina, Aurelius, Galymenes. 

We give the fac-simile of another, where the old 
heathen formula, D. M., which they used for divis 
manibns, it has been argued, was retained with a 
Christian meaning as applied to our Lord, and is to 
be interpreted Deo Maximo : — 

D A\ f S 

VITAUS DEroSlTADlAESy\BAT\/|<UVC 

Sacred to Christ, the Supreme God. 
Vitalis, buried on Saturday, Kalends of August. She lived twenty- 
five years and three months. She lived with her husband, tea 
years and thirty days. In Christ, the First and the Last. 



THE INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 75 

There is, too, a simplicity in most of these in- 
scriptions which does not mark the monuments of 
tltair adversaries. It is seen even in the names. 
While those of the Romans consisted of several 
parts, as " Aurelius Felix," " Quintus Mediolus," 
or " Victor Septimus Severus," but a single one 
generally was inscribed on the resting-place of the 
Christian. This may have happened partly from 
the fact that the latter in the obscurity of his social 
position, had but one by which to be designated^) 
but may he not, also, sometimes from choice have 
confined himself to that which he received at his 
baptism ? With him it was often a matter of prin- 
ciple to drop all that pertained to the distinctions 
of this world, and voluntarily to abase himself, that 
he might be more like his master. Such, for in- 
stance, are the following: — 



FLO RENT/ 



Florentius, in peace. 



W T m 

1 GAWA ^ 



J 



Casta. 



76 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 




Januarius. 

Such, too, is the case with the broken tomb, a 
drawing of which is found in D'Agincourt. The 
view is the more striking, because when copied by 
him, the dust was still lying in it, resembling the 
shadow of a skeleton : — 




Valeria sleeps in peace. 

But it is in the spirit of these inscriptions that we 
chiefly mark the contrast of our faith with that old 
and effete religion which it supplanted. No hope be- 
yond the grave sheds its light over the pagan mon- 
uments. The expression, "DOMVS ETERNALIS, 
An eternal home," constantly appears. It is thus 
that the despair of a mother for her infant child is 
shown in one of the inscriptions of the Lapidarian 
Gallery : — 



THE INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 77 

ATROX FORTVNA TRVC1 QVAE FVNERE CAYDES 
QY1D MIHI TAM SVBITO MAXIMYS ERIPITVR. 

relentless Fortune, who delightest in cruel death, 
Why is Maxiraus so early snatched from me? 

Even the noble philosophy of Greece appears to 
have left no trace in these epitaphs, nor do the 
glorious dreams of Plato, as he argued on the very 
verge of truth, seem to have dawned upon the 
minds of those who, in the Imperial city, thus laid 
the loved and lost in the tomb. A gloomy stoicism 
— a forced resignation — is the highest feeling we 
can discover. They turn to the life which is past, 
only with Epicurean regret that its pleasures can 
be enjoyed no longer. Take, for instance, the 
Anacreontic language in the following : — 

D-M 

TI-OLAVDI-SECVNDI 

HIC • SECYM • HABET ■ OMNIA 

BALNEA • YINVN • YENYS 

CORRYMPYNT- CORPORA • 

NOSTRA • SED • YITAM FACIYNT 

B-Y-Y- 

To the Divine Manes of Titus Claudius Secundus, who lived 57 
years. Here he enjoys everything. Baths, wine, and love, ruin 
our constitutions, but — they make life what it is. Farewell, fare- 
well." 

So in this, where life is looked upon as a play : — 

YIXI • D VM - YIXI • BENE • JAM • MEA 
PERACTA • MOX ■ YESTRA • AGETVR 
FABYLA • VALETE ■ ET -PLAYDITE. 
Y-A-N-LYII. 

While I lived, I lived well. My play is now ended, soon yours 
will be. Farewell, and applaud me. 

But nowhere can we trace anything but calmness 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



and peace in the inscriptions of the early Christians. 
Brief as they may be, they yet evidently look to a 
life beyond life. We see how immediate was the 
elevating influence of the new creed. Nothing, 
indeed, which is gloomy or painful finds a place 
among these records of the martyrs. They evi- 
dently laid the athlete of Christ to his rest, without 
any sorrow that his fight was over, or any expres- 
sion of vengeance against those who doomed him 
to death. They thought too much of his celestial 
recompense to associate with it the tortures and 
evils of this lower life. A light had risen to dispel 
the horror of darkness which had hitherto reigned 
over the grave ; and while the first disciples had 
before them a view of the Eternal city, it is no 
wonder they were willing even to rush through the 
gate of martyrdom, that they might enter the star- 
ry portals. Death was to them like sinking to a 
gentle slumber ; and often this is the only idea ex- 
pressed in their short epitaphs : — 

DORMITIO ELPIDIS. 

The sleeping place of Elpis. 

VICTORINA DORMIT. 

Victorina sleeps. 

ZOTICYS HIC AD DORMIEXDVM. 

Zoticus laid here to sleep. 

Or the following, of which we give a copy : — 

CEHli-ADORH- 



ll^/\(T 



Gemella sleeps in peace. 



THE INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 79 

Frequently, too, we find the inscription : — 

IN PACE DOMINI DORMIT. 
He sleeps in the peace of the Lord. 

Sometimes, too, they expressed still more fully 
their disbelief in the chilling doctrine of the anni- 
hilation of the soul, taught by paganism, or the 
almost equally cheerless picture of an uncertain 
Elysium, which was the utmost that creed could 
impart to them. Thus, in a portion of the epitaph 
which Placus recorded above his wife Albania, he 
says : — 

RELICTTS TYIS IACES IN PACE SOPORE 
MERITA RESVRGIS TEMPORALIS TIBI DATA 
REQVETIO. 

You, well-deserving one, having left your [relations], lie in 
peace — in sleep. You will arise ; a temporary rest is granted you. 

The absence, indeed, of every feeling but those 
of trust and hope, is most remarkable in these epi- 
taphs. No word of bitterness is breathed even 
against their persecutors, by whom their brethren 
had been doomed to death. Succeeding genera- 
tions relied upon distinguishing the tombs of the 
martyrs, more by the emblems placed over them, 
uncertain as this test was, than by the words of the 
inscriptions. In very few cases is the manner of 
their death mentioned. We believe there is but a 
single instance of one picturing martyrdom to the 
eye, and that is the representation of a man torn 
in pieces by wild beasts. "To look at the Cata- 
combs alone," says Rochette, "it might be sup- 
posed that persecution had there no victims, since 
Christianity has made no allusion to suffering." 



80 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

And then he goes on to contrast this spirit with 
that displayed in the adornment of some of the 
modern churches of Rome : " Perhaps I may be 
allowed to acid, that a series of paintings, like those 
of St. Stefano in Rotundo [a church in Rome], 
filled with all the scenes of barbarity which the 
rage of executioners could devise, or the constancy 
of martyrs support, honors less the faith which in- 
spires such images, or which resisted such trials, 
than the paintings of the Catacombs, generally so 
pure, so peaceful in their object and intention, 
where it seems that the gospel ought to have met 
with no enemies, appearing so gentle, so ready to 
forgive"."* 

So also another modern writer who has studied 
the subject with profound attention, says : " The 
Catacombs destined for the sepulture of the primi- 
tive Christians, for a long time peopled with mar- 
tyrs, ornamented during times of persecution, and 
under the dominion of melancholy thoughts and 
painful duties, nevertheless everywhere represent 
in all the historic parts of these paintings only 
what is noble and exalted (des traits heroiques\ 
and in that which constitutes the purely decorative 
part, only pleasing and graceful subjects, the im- 
ages of the Good Shepherd, representations of the 
vintage, of the Agape, with pastoral scenes ; the 
symbols are fruits, flow r ers, palms, crowns, lambs, 
doves ; in a w r ord, nothing but what excites emo- 
tions of joy, innocence, and charity. Entirely oc- 
cupied with the celestial recompense which awaited 
them after the trials of their troubled life, and often 

* Tableau des Catacombs, p. 194. This work is interdicted in Rome. 



THE INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 81 

of so dreadful a death, the Christians saw in death, 
and even in execution, only a way by which they 
arrived at this everlasting happiness ; and far from 
associating with this image that of the tortures or 
privations which opened Heaven before them, they 
took pleasure in enlivening it with smiling colors, 
or presenting it under agreeable symbols, adorning 
it with flowers and vine-leaves ; for it is thus that 
the asylum of death appears to us in the Christian 
Catacombs. There is no sign of mourning, no 
token of resentment, no expression of vengeance ; 
all breathes softness, benevolence, charity."* 

The only case in which anything like denun- 
ciation is found, is where it is directed against 
those who should violate the sanctity of the grave. 
To the early Christians, even this frail tabernacle 
had acquired a higher value and dignity, when 
they learned the lesson of the resurrection, and 
that it was this mortal which hereafter was to 
"put on immortality." Precious in their eyes, 
therefore, became the remains of the saints. They 
could not burn them upon the funeral-pile, nor 
would they gather them into an unmeaning urn, 
for they felt that these lifeless relics had been con- 
secrated to the Lord, and were now to be placed in 
charge of the Angel of the Resurrection until the 
end of all things. Therefore it was, that somewhat 
in the spirit of the Hebrew Psalms, in inscriptions 
like the following (Arringhi, lib. iv., cap. xxvii.), 
they recorded their curse against any who should 
disturb the rest of that body which was one day to 
be united again to its spiritual partner : — 

* D'Agincourt : Hist, de VArt. 
4* 



82 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

MALE PEREAT INSEPYLTVS 

JACEAT ETON RESVRGAT 

CVM JYDA PARTEM HABEAT 

SI QVIS SEPVLCHRVM HVNC 

VIOLAVERIT. 

If any one shall violate this sepulchre, 

Let him perish miserably, and remain unburied; 

Let him lie down, and not rise again ; 

Let his portion be with Judas. 

Nor was the tone of these epitaphs changed 
when the days of persecution passed away, and the 
members of the Church were no longer obliged to 
conceal their sacred rites "in dens and caves of 
the earth." No words of gratulation mark the in- 
scriptions they recorded. They seemed in those 
solemn places to heed the world as little when it 
smiled upon them, as they did when suffering from 
its enmity. The Church was a little elated by tri- 
umph, as before it had been depressed by adversity. 

But how do these things seem to bring us back 
to the best and purest daj 7 s of our faith ! In these 
dark caverns, surrounded by the mouldering re- 
mains of those, of whom in this life the world knew 
not, we feel there is a spirit lingering, which par- 
takes more of Heaven than of earth. We have, in 
the beginning of this chapter, compared this city 
of the Dead to the recovered relics of Pompeii ; yet 
how wide the interval of interest which separates 
the two ! The ruined streets of the pagan city 
have been once more opened, and again the sun 
shines on its vacant homes ; yet as we tread where 
once gathered thousands "lived and moved and 
had their being," what other sentiment is gratified 



THE INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CATACOMBS. 83 

but that of curiosity ? Everything is " of the earth, 
earthy;" we see nothing but what relates to this 
material life, and we learn no lesson but that of the 
fearful profligacy of these bright Campanian cities. 
But amid the darkness of the Catacombs, we are 
reminded of that spiritual day which shone upon 
those who there made their home, and which now 
speaks out from the inscriptions on their graves. 
It is not alone a place of gloom and desolation. It 
reminds us not even primarily of death. Its dom- 
inant sentiment is that of immortality. From the 
distant past — from their rock-hewn tombs — we 
hear the voice of the buried martyrs, calling on us 
to rejoice and hope, because the darkness has 
rolled away from the sepulchre, and Christ has 
become to us, as He was to them, the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life. 



V. 



THE MARTYRS OF THE CATACOMBS, 



THE MARTYRS OF THE CATACOMBS. 

The places in the Catacombs which the members 
of the early Church regarded as invested with a 
peculiar consecration, were the graves of the mar- 
tyrs. " The noble army of martyrs, praise Thee," 
was early chanted in the Church at Milan; and in 
accordance with its spirit, the followers of our Lord 
have paid their highest honors to those who, in this 
warfare of faith, led the forlorn hope, and fell vic- 
torious. In these days of coldness, indeed, we are 
startled as we read the glowing accounts of the 
early martyrologists. They love to exhibit the suf- 
ferer as sustained by a lofty enthusiasm, which 
rendered him almost insensible to pain — as being 
engaged in a conflict, in which he and the execu- 
tioner were the combatants — "hinc martyr, illinc 
carnifex," as Prudentius expresses it. In his own 
dissolving powers, the martyr recognised the pledge 
of his victory. No group, indeed, of Oceanides 
were there to console the Christian Prometheus ; 
yet to hig upturned eye, countless angels were visi- 
ble — their anthem swept sweetly and solemnly to 



88 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

his ear — and the odors of an opening Paradise 
filled the air. Though the dull ear of sense heard 
nothing, he could listen to the invisible Coryphaeus, 
as he invited him to Heaven, and promised him an 
Eternal crown. 

It is in this spirit that Prudentius — to whom be- 
longs the honor, at the beginning of the fifth cen- 
tury, of introducing poetry into the literature of 
religion* — makes his hero exclaim : — 

Erras cruente, si meam 
Te rere pcenam sumere, 
Quum membra morti obnoxia 
Dilancinata interficis. 

Est alter, est intrinsecus, 
Violare quern nullus potest, 
Liber, quietus, integer, 
Exsors dolorum tristium. 

Hoc, quod laboras perdere 
Tantis furoris viribus, 
Vas est solutum ac fictile 
Quocumque frangendum modo. 

* Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born in Spain, in 348. His 
most celebrated work is his book, Ucpi HrecpavcjVy " On the Crowns 
of the Martyrs." His poems are valuable, not only for the genius 
and poetic spirit they display, but as exhibiting also the customs 
and feelings of the Christian world at that day. Prudentius, how- 
ever, wrote nearly a century too late. At the beginning of the fifth 
century (he did not visit Rome till the year 405), clouds were al- 
ready beginning to darken about the pathway of the Church, and 
we can already find the commencement of those errors which, 
through the Middle Ages, so fearfully perverted the faith. All 
these are described by Prudentius with graphic fidelity, and we 
therefore turn to him as a witness for the opinions of the Church, 
when her early purity was fading away, and not as giving us a pic- 
ture of what she was in her first and best days. 




THE MARTYRS OF THE CATACOMBS. 89 

Tear as you will this mangled frame, 

Prone to mortality ; 
But, think not man of blood, to tame 

Or take revenge on me. 

You overlook, in thus supposing, 
The nobler self that dwells within ; 

Throughout these cruel scenes reposing, 
Where naught that injures enters in. 

This, which you labor to destroy 
With so much madness, so much rage, 

Is but a vessel formed of clay, 

Brittle, and hastening to decay. 

Let nobler foes your arms employ; 

Subdue the indomitable soul ; 
Which, when fierce whirlwinds rend the sky, 
Looks on in calm security, 
And only bows to God's control. 

Again, in another passage — for we can not for- 
bear making a few extracts from one so little known, 
yet so admirable an exponent of the spirit of the 
age in which he lived — when describing the Pro- 
consular records of the execution of Romanus, he 
takes occasion to compare them with the eternal 
records kept by Christ, commemorative of his ser- 
vants' sufferings. 

Illas sed setas conficit diutina, 
Uligo fuscat, pulvis obducit situ, 
Carpit senectus, aut ruinis obruit; 
Inscripta Christo pagina immortalis est, 
Nee obsolescit ullus in coelis apex. 
Excepit adstans angelus corum Deo, 
Et qua3 locutus martyr, et quae pertulit: 
Nee verba solum disserentis condidit, 
Sed ipsa pingens vulnera expressit stilo, 
Laterum, genarum, pectorisque, et faucium. 
Omnia notata est sanguinis dimensio, 



90 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

Ut quanquam plagam sulcus exaraverit, 
Altam, patentem, proximara, longam, brevem, 
Qua vis doloris, quive segmenti modus: 
Guttarn cruoris ille nullam perdidit 

But these the dust and damp consume, 
And Time, in his destroying race, 
Shall breathe upon the tragic scroll, 
And every mouldering line efface. 
There is a record traced on high, 
That shall endure eternally; 
On whose everlasting page, 
ZSTaught grows obsolete by age. 
The angel, standing by God's throne, 
Treasures there each word and groan ; 
And not the martyr's speech alone, 
But every wound is there depicted, 
With every circumstance of pain, 
The crimson stream, the gash inflicted, 
And not a drop is shed in vain. 

Even the murder of the Innocents calls forth one 
of his most splendid efforts : — 

Salvete, flores m arty rum, 

Quos lucis ipso in limine 

Christi insecutor sustulit, 

Ceu turbo nascentes rosas. 
Yos prima Christi victima, 

Grex immolatorum tener, 

Aram ante ipsam simplices 

Palma, et coronis luditis. 

First fruits of martyrs, hail! 

Whom in the dawning of Life's day, 

The godless tyrant swept away, 

As storm, the budding roses. 
But now before the altar hi^h 

Each tender victim safe reposes, 
Pleased in that dread vicinity, 
With branch of palm and crown to play; 
Though all unconscious of the prize, 
Themselves, Christ's earliest sacrifice. 



THE MARTYRS OF THE CATACOMBS. 91 

We learn, indeed, from various sources, how 
precious to the early Church was the blood of her 
martyrs. They felt, more than we can do in these 
latter days, the magnitude of the conflict through 
which they had passed, and the glory of the victory 
they had achieved. They looked upon them as con- 
querors, in the highest sense, over all the entice- 
ments of this mortal life, as well as the nameless 
terrors which gathered around their parting hour 
of agony. They esteemed, indeed, the " baptism 
of blood" the surest passport to the paradise above ; 
and when Quirinus was sentenced to be drowned, 
Prudentius, in lamenting his fate, thinks it neces- 
sary to vindicate his claim to the honors of martyr- 
dom, notwithstanding his death was without blood- 
shed : — 

Nil refert, vitreo aequore, 
An de flumine sanguinis 
Tinguat passio martyrem; 
iEquse gloria provenit, 
Fluctu quolibet uvida. 

The deep cold waters close o'er one; 
Another sheds a crimson river; 
No matter; either stream returns 
A life to the Eternal Giver: 
Each tinges with a glorious dye 
The martyr's robe of victory. 

From this cause, the very remains of the martyrs 
became precious to them. They gathered up all 
that could be rescued of their mangled bodies, with 
an enthusiastic feeling which was natural in those 
ages of simplicity and persecution ; and so well 
was this understood among the pagans, that on one 
occasion, to disappoint them in their hopes, and to 



92 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

add fresh pains to their bereavement, they threw 
the bodies of the martyrs of Lyons into the Rhone- 
Is it strange, then, that the "resting-places of the 
martyrs were marked, and became, as it were, 
a nucleus around which other graves were ga- 
thered ?* 

Yet this expression of reverence gave no prece- 
dent for the corruption into which it afterward 
grew, though we can easily see how the change 
took place. The dividing line between a proper 
veneration for the relics of one who had shed his 
blood for the faith, and their idolatrous worship, 
was insensibly passed, men scarcely marked how ; 
and when Prudentius wrote on this subject, the 
Church had already begun to wander far from her 
ancient simplicity. Yet so was it not in the early 
days when these martyrs were laid to their rest in 
the Catacombs. No hired mourners, as with the 
heathen around them, sent forth their sounds of 
wailing sorrow, but the true-hearted and the devout 
wept the untimely fate of those they might soon be 
called to follow. The places where they rested, 
were, to the surviving, consecrated shrines. They 
felt, as did St. Augustine, when, in his " City of 
God," he speaks of the bodies of Christians, as 
" vases which the Holy Ghost had lighted up with 
good works ;" and in another place, he says, " the 
bodies of the saints are more glorious than if man 
had not fallen." Yet in all this we trace no 
feeling of superstition mingled with their rever- 
ence. 

* The first twenty chapters of Arringhi's Roma Subterranea, are 
devoted to a discussion of the martyrs of the Catacombs. 



THE MARTYRS OF THE CATACOMBS. 93 

Of the number of the martyrs we can form no 
estimate. We know that as one persecution after 
another swept over the Imperial city, each must 
have added largety to the lengthening catalogue of 
those who offered up their lives on the altar of 
Christian duty. For ages Rome was crimson with 
the blood of apostles and confessors and martyrs, 
thus realizing the figure by which St. John symbol- 
izes the pagan city — " a woman drunken with the 
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the mar- 
tyrs of Jesus."* And such, too, is the representa- 
tion given by St. Cyprian, in the middle of the 
third century, when, applauding the courage and 
constancy in faith exhibited by the Christians, he 
declares that the number of those who had suffered 
martyrdom was incalculable. f 

We have already said, that of but few among the 
thousands gathered here, is the manner of their 
death plainly mentioned. As, however, it may be 
interesting to see the way in which this is done 
in these few exceptions, w T e will copy several of 
them : — 

PRIMITIVS IN PACE QVI POST 

MVLTAS ANGVSTIAS FORTISSIMVS MARTYR 

ET VIXIT ANNOS P.M. XXXVIII CONIVC. SVO 

PERDVLCISSIMO BENEMERENTI FECIT. 

/■ 

Primitius in peace; a most valiant martyr, after many torments. 
Aged 38. His wife raised this to her dearest well-deserving hus- 
band. 

* Rev. xvii., 6. 

\ "Exuberante copia virtutis, et fidei numerari non possunt mar- 
tyres Christi." — Lib. de Exhort Martyr., c. xi. 



94 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 




LAMW/ 




L_n 




Lannus, the martyr of Christ, rests here. He suffered under Dio- 
cletian. For his successors also. 

The letters E. P. S. are stated by Boldetti to 
stand for the words, Et Posteris Suis. 

The next shows, from its concluding sentence, 
that it was erected during a time of actual perse- 
cution. It has, carved on its sides, the two most 
common emblems — the cross and palm branch. 

TEMPORE ADRIANI IMPERATORIS MA 
RIU3 ADOLESCENS DVX MILlTVMjQVI 
SATIS VIXIT DVM VITAM PRO CHO 
CVM SANGVINE CONSVNSIT IN PACE 
TANDEM QVIEVIT BENEMERENTES 
CVM LACRIMIS ET METV POSVERVNT 
I. D. VI. 

In Christ. In the time of the Emperor Adrian, Marins, a young 
military officer, who had lived long enough, when, with his blood 
he gave up his life for Christ. At length he rested in peace. The 
well-deserving set up this with tears and in fear, on the 6th, Ides 
of December. 




As 



THE MARTYRS OF THE CATACOMBS. 95 

We give the fac-simile of another discovered by 
Arringhi in the cemetery of St. Agnes. It is diffi- 
cult to decipher, but the rendering is given by him 
(lib. iii.j cap. xxii., p. 337) : — 



X ATV 9 TTPw4h h cWl$AMHXHfcT^rA 
OVHe navVtHPTTAKG 
NQQf&JtiP CHMA^e cut 




Hie Gordianus Gallise nuncius, jugulatus pro fide, cum familia 
tota ; quiesscunt in pace ; Theophila ancilla fecit. 

Here lies Gordianus, deputy of Gaul, who was murdered, with 
all his family, for the faith ; they rest in peace. Theophila, his 
handmaid, set up this. 

These are specimens of the few inscriptions of 
this kind that can be found. There is another, a 
portion of which we quoted in the second chapter, 
erected to mark the resting-place of a martyr who 
was surprised at his devotions in the Catacombs, 
and found there his place of death and burial.* 

* We have confined the discussion in these pages almost entirely 
to the Catacombs in the immediate vicinity of Rome, the inscriptions 
from which are contained in the Lapidarian Gallery in the Vatican, 
as we wished to speak on this subject, as far as possible, from per- 
sonal examination. We find in some works, accounts of inscriptions, 
not in this collection, and discovered in other places under similar 
circumstances. For instance, at the town of Nepi, on the road to 
Florence, twenty-four miles from Rome, was discovered, in 1540, a 
natural grotto which had been converted into a cemetery for the 
first inhabitants of the place, who embraced Christianity. The 
graves are excavated in the walls, in the same manner as in the 
Roman cemeteries, and amounted to nearly six hundred in number. 
Of these, thirty-eight, it is said, were ascertained to be those of mar- 
tyrs. A portion of the inscription over one, plainly sets forth the 
fact that he was beheaded : — 

MARTYItIO CORONATUS CAriTK TRUNCATIS JACET. 

— Rock's Hierurgia, 2d ed., p. 548. 



96 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

But, we remarked, it was chiefly through em- 
blems rudely carved on the stone, that later gener- 
ations thought to distinguish the graves of those 
who actually shed their blood for the faith. Yet 
these have furnished abundant materials for discus- 
sion to the antiquarian. Among them is the ungu- 
la, or hooked forceps, which is usually regarded as 
an instrument of torture, some of which has been 
found w T ithin the tombs, and are now shown in the 
museum of the Vatican. Another is a hooked 
comb, which it is contended was used in tearing 
the flesh of the martyrs. On the other hand, it is 
asserted by some writers, that these instruments 
were the emblems of the trade or profession of him 
who is buried beneath; to inscribe these on the 
tomb, as w T ill be seen in the next chapter, being a 
custom common in that day. On this subject we 
can not of course pretend to decide, but will only 
observe, that the former opinion is the one sustained 
by Arringhi* and Bolcletti, and that these instru- 
ments are frequently mentioned in the " Peristepha- 
non," of Prudentius. 

The palm by itself, which is found on so many 
tombs, is now allowed by most writers to be no cer- 
tain evidence of martyrdom. It was rather a Chris- 
tian emblem, showing the triumph over sin and the 
grave, in which every true follower of our Lord 
had a right to claim his part. 

Another is the cup, which was often found with- 
out the graves, and is so represented in some of the 

* Arringhi devotes a chapter to the subject: "Marty riorum in- 
Btrumenta una cum martyrum corporibus tumulo reponuntur." — 
Roma Subterranea, lib. i., cap. 29. 



THE MARTYRS OF THE CATACOMBS. 97 

engravings we have already given. It was contend- 
ed that this was placed at the martyr's grave filled 
with his blood.* But while in writers of that day 
we find abundant evidence of the care of the Chris- 
tians in collecting the remains of their friends and 
the blood shed in martyrdom, it was that they might 
possess the latter as a precious memorial. There is 
nowhere a mention made of their burying it. Pru- 
dentius, in describing the eagerness of the friends 
of St Yincent to dip their cloths in his blood, gives 
as a reason, that they might keep it at home, as a 
sacred palladium for their posterity. 

Plerique vestem linteam 

Stillante tingunt sanguine, % 

Tutamen ut sacrum suis t 

Domi reservent posteris.f 

Crowds haste the linen vest to stain, 

With gore distilled from martyr's vein, 

And, thus, a holy safeguard place 

At home, to shield their future race. 

It is curious, indeed, to see the different explana- 
tions which writers have given of the origin and 
meaning of this emblem. It is suggested, for in- 
stance, by Koestell, a view too which Raoul Ro- 
chette seems to take, that these were only intended 
to represent sacramental cups, showing the deceased 
to have been in all respects a member of the Chris- 
tian Churoli and accustomed to unite with his 
brethren in that rite which showed their union with 
their departed Lord. This view is strengthened, 
indeed, by the inscription found on some of these 
cups. On one of them are the words — VINCEN- 
TI PIE ZESE (for {*«*), "Vincent, drink and 

* Rock's Hierurgia, p. 269. f Peristephanon : Hymn v. 

5 



98 THE CATACOMBS OF KOME. 

live." This seems evidently to refer to sacrament- 
al purposes. Maitland, on the contrary, is disposed 
to adopt the idea, that these vessels were " deposi- 
tories for aromatic gums," which, as we have al- 
ready stated in a former chapter, were much used 
by the early Christians in the interment of the 
dead. 

The consequence of all these discussions is, that 
the cup is beginning to be looked upon by anti- 
quarians as being of very uncertain meaning. 
There is, too, a chronological difficulty connected 
with this subject. It is found in many tombs of so 
late a period as to be posterior to that of the perse- 
cutions, where therefore it is impossible that the 
individual could have been a martyr.* 

Another difficulty is the youth of some of those 
on whose graves this symbol is found. For in- 
stance, Arringhi (lib. iii., c. xxii.) gives the inscrip- 
tion over a child of three years of age, w T hich is 
accompanied with the cup. He could hardly have 
been a martyr. 

ANASTASIYS QVI BIXIT 
ANNOS TRES. 



tAi 




The furnace is also frequently found as an 
emblem. It is sometimes in this shape. 
J^J\ This is said by some writers .to signify, 

* "Some of these vessels, supposed thus to have been vessels of 
martyr's blood, have been found, on careful examination, to be of a 
form and make long subsequent to the age of persecution, and to 
exhibit signs painted or graven upon them which could not have 
been so graven or painted till after the times of martyrdom, inas- 
much as they were not invented till years long subsequent."— 
Mornings among the Jesuits, by Seymour, p. 222. 



THE MARTYRS OF THE CATACOMBS. - 99 

that the individual suffered death by fire, or that 
these were caldrons filled with boiling oil in which 
the martyr was immersed. It is exhibited in an- 
other form in the following inscription : — 

BICTORI /3&NAIN 

pace f^xirmt 

VICTORINA m PACE ET IN CHRISTO. 
Victorina in peace and in Christ 

These are the principal emblems which are sup- 
posed to point out the tombs of the martyrs. It 
will be seen that they are involved in great obscu- 
rity, and the only certain evidence is derived from 
the declaration of the fact in the inscription. 
But there is another truth connected with this sub- 
ject, which is worth our notice. Perilous as were 
those times, how seldom do we see anything gloomy 
in the symbols or the inscriptions with which they 
laid their brethren to rest! They had too little 
for which to live, even to harbor a thought of hos- 
tility against those whose persecution separated 
them from this decaying life ; and their visions of 
glory were too vivid to suffer them to lament the 
athlete of Christ, when he had worthily finished 
his course. The dismal pictures of martyrdom 
which now meet our gaze at every step, in foreign 
galleries and churches, are the productions of later 
days. They are the signs of a period when the 
spirit of the Church had become dark and gloomy. 



100 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

Thus it is that " the noble army of the martyrs" 
rest about us in these dark retreats, and never until 
the Last Day will it be known with regard to many 
that they sacrificed their lives for the faith. Yet 
as long as they were remembered, their tombs were 
hallowed spots to those who came after them. The 
motto of the early Church was, via crucis, via 
lucis. The heroes it reverenced were not the war- 
riors w T hose laurels were gained on fields of earthly 
conflict with " garments rolled in blood," but those 
who like their Master, died that the faith might 
live : — > 

"Strange conquest, where the conqueror must die, 
And he is slain that wins the victory 1" 



VI. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



VI. 

THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 

The early Christians looked upon the fine arts 
with suspicion. Their noblest efforts had been so 
entirely devoted to the interests of paganism, in 
bodying forth the imaginary gods which in the old 
mythology peopled Olympus, that to the disciples 
of the new faith painting and sculpture were asso- 
ciated with " the worship of devils." " He paints 
unlawfully," was one of the charges made by the 
stern Tertullian against Hermogenes. Sculpture 
had led captive the imaginations of men, and they 
therefore dreaded its influence. A long time had 
to pass before this feeling was obliterated, and the 
fine arts with a new spirit came fortli once more to 
minister in the service of the Christian faith. 

The class of society, too, from which the earliest 
disciples came — the poor and the lowly — was 
composed of those who had no knowledge of the 
refinements of the arts. Not for them had been the 
pride and pomp of this world, but their lives were 
condemned to obscurity and toil. On them, there- 
fore, the treasures of Grecian art were wasted, and 



104 THE CATACOMBS OF HOME. 

the most rudely -formed image, if it expressed the 
idea they wished to develop, was as valuable as the 
finest production from the chisel of Phidias. If it 
symbolized their faith, it was all they asked. 

Of this ignorance of many of the early disciples, 
some of the inscriptions we have already copied to 
show other points, have given sufficient evidence. 
In many cases, the orthography itself is so faulty 
that it requires study to discover what must have 
been the original meaning. They were evidently 
the work of some who had not shared in the light 
of the Augustan Age. Such, for instance, is the 
following, which as a specimen of latinity is per- 
fectly unrivalled : — 



IIBER QVI VIXI QVAI QVO 
PARE IVA ANOIVE I ANORV 
M PL VI MINVI XXX I PACE 



The probable reading is this : — 

Liber, qui vixit cum compare 
Sua annum I annorum 
Plug minus xxx in pace. 

Still more singular is one in the Lapidarian Gal- 
lery, of which we give a fac-simile : — 

1ATfX)V1VpAlTN^NIVAJJ3 
M3lOVHKATfXlv3Vi) 

Elia Vincentia, who lived — years and two months. She lived 
with Virginius a year and a day. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 105 

It will be perceived that the inscription is entire- 
ly reversed. To render it legible, it must be held 
before a mirror, and then its meaning will be as 
plain as can be with a sentence so rudely sculp- 
tured. Maitland conjectures that the stonecutter 
endeavored to take off upon the marble the impres- 
sion of a written inscription, and the husband of 
Elia was too ignorant to perceive the error, or to 
procure a more intelligible record of his wife. 

But this very ignorance drove them to some form 
of symbolism. They wished something to picture 
to the eye, and in their ignorance of language were 
obliged to resort to other representations. It is to 
this we must ascribe the rudely-carved lion on the 
tomb of Leo. The picture recalled his name at 
once to the unlettered survivors, to whom the words 
of the epitaph would have been unintelligible. 

PONTIVS-LEO-S-EBIV 
ET PONTIA • M 
FECERVNT-FI 




Besides those which in this way represented 
proper names, there were two classes of symbols. 
One of a purely secular kind, indicating the trade 
of him who was buried beneath. Thus we some- 
times find the adze and saw of the carpenter. This 
was often the custom with the Romans, and at once 

5* 



106 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



recalls to our minds the sphere and cylinder on the 
tomb of Archimedes, by which Cicero discovered 
the resting-place of the mathematician. We will 
give a single illustration of this, and the one which 
we select is chosen rather from the curious fate to 
which it has been subjected. In the successive 
irruptions of barbarians, which, as we have already 
described, inundated the Imperial city, and de- 
stroyed its antiquities and works of art, the slabs on 
which the inscriptions in the Catacombs were re- 
corded, were often torn from their places and used 
for the most common purposes. One of these 
Maitland discovered built into the wall of a pas- 
sage in the Piazza di Spagna, in Rome. It is the 
epitaph on a wool-comber, and we copy it as a 
good illustration of the point we would show. We 
have here all the implements of his trade ; the 
shears, comb, the plate of metal with rounded 
handle, and the speculum : — 

VENBdXElMPACAe 




To Veneria, in peace. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 107 

But we pass from these cases, as they have no 
connection with the faith of those over whom they 
were carved. In addition to which, they are com- 
paratively few in number. 

The other class, and by far the larger proportion, 
refer to the profession of Christianity and those 
hopes which had so lately dawned upon them, and 
lived beyond the narrow grave which they had de- 
prived of its terrors. Of these w r e naturally turn 
first to the cross, the primal symbol of Christianity, 
because it is the one most generally used. This 
emblem of our common faith is everywhere to be 
seen. Although so lately invested with the. most 
humiliating associations, to the early Christians it 
became at once a mark of dignity and honor. Un- 
like but too many who, in this day, bear that holy 
name which was first assumed at Antioch, they 
gloried in the Cross. They used it as an emblem 
on all occasions during life — for with them the 
Cross explained everything — and it consecrated 
their tombs when the conflict of life was over, and 
they had exchanged it for the crown. But we post- 
pone for the present any further discussion of this 
emblem, as in the succeeding chapter we shall en- 
deavor to trace the changes through which its rep- 
resentation passed. 




10S THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

We often, too, meet with the monogram of our 
Lord's name, in what was undoubtedly its earliest 
form, the X and P, the first letters of Xptr**, united. 
For example, in the preceding and following simple 
inscriptions: — 



btrpiooWeace 



TTe copy one more for a peculiarity connected 
with it, which, however, is not uncommon in these 
early epitaphs. The primitive Christians seem often 
to have taken some tablet with a heathen inscrip- 
tion, and erasing it, to have placed their own in its 
stead. Such is the case with the following, where 
the whole of the original epitaph is not obliterated ; 
but we still trace the D. M., standing for DIVIS 
MAXIBUS, "To the Divine Manes," and two 
other letters, the meaning of which it would now 
be impossible to discover: — 

HERCULIO. INNOCENTI 

JENXJARIA ALUMNOMERE. 
IN PACE 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



109 



The monogram was sometimes surrounded by 
palms, which were much used in all these, em- 
blems, as being to the Christians symbols of vic- 
tory and triumph. We find it, therefore, repre- 
sented in this way : — 




The next step was that the monogram was 
somewhat altered in form by the decussation (to 
use the technical term) of the X, to produce the 
form of a cross. The following figure, in which it 
is so represented, is copied from the tomb of $ 
child, who died in his fourth year. The monogram 
here has become a regular cross, which a figure is 
holding : — - 




Subsequently the A and a were sometimes added, 
referring to the well-known passage in the Apoca- 
lypse, where our Lord is styled the Alpha and 



110 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



Omega. The use of these letters is frequently 
mentioned by both Tertullian and Prudentius, 
showing how general in that age must have been 
the reception of the book of Revelations as a part 
of the inspired canon. These letters are represent- 
ed in the following fragment of an inscription : — 



QUIESCIT IN PACE 1 
IANUARIUS nf VIXIT A 1 



There was a seal-ring found in the Catacombs, on 
which were engraven the same emblems, while the 
monogram seems to be sustained by two doves :-*- 





Sometimes, probably from the ignorance of the 
sculptor, these two symbolical letters were inverted, 
as in the following rudely sculptured design : — 




THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. Ill 

Besides these inverted letters, we have here the 
monogram, together with the name of the individ- 
ual. It is to be read, therefore, " Tasaris, in Christ, 
the First and the Last." 

Next to these, one of the most common symbols was 
the fish. It was a majestic sign in which the early 
Christians particularly delighted, not only because 
it was so expressive of the idea they wished to body 
forth, but because it was an emblem whose meaning 
their heathen foes would have found it impossible to 
detect. The idea was originally derived from the 
Greek word for fish, t^fli*, which contains the initials 

Of Ipaovs Xpirog Qeov Yios £wr^, JeSUS CHRIST, THE SON OF 

God, the Savior. Among the religious emblems 
which St. Clement (A. D. 194) recommends to the 
Christians of Alexandria, to have engraven on their 
rings, he mentions the fish, and remarks, " that such 
a sign will prevent them from forgetting their ori- 
gin."* It furnished, too, a theme on which an ori- 
ental imagination found much to dwell, in detecting 
other resemblances. " The fish," says Tertullian, 
" seems a fit emblem of Him, whose spiritual chil- 
dren are, like the offspring of fishes, born in the 
water of baptism." 

The word ix e »s was often expressed at length in 
their inscriptions, and at other times the fish itself 
was figured. 

We copy one of the earliest specimens, where it is 
given in its rudest form, the mere outline scratched 
upon the slab, together with the dove. Were it not 
by comparison with other inscriptions, we should 
not recognise the fish . 

* Pcedag., 1. iii., c. xi. 



112 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 




A better representation is found upon a lamp dis- 
covered in the Catacombs, where two fish are por- 
trayed upon the upper part of the lamp, while the 
handle shows the monogram of our Lord's name. 




On some of the tombs we find an anchor pic- 
tured, of which Clement of Alexandria speaks as a 
Christian emblem. The association of ideas here is 
obvious. They looked upon life as a stormy voy- 
age, and glad were the voyagers when it was done, 
and they had arrived safe in port. Of this the an- 
chor was a symbol, and when their brethren carved 
it over the tomb, it was to them an expression of 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 113 

confidence that lie who slept beneath had reached 
the haven of eternal rest. 




A similar idea undoubtedly dictated the choice 
of a ship as one of their most common emblems, 
and which the Church of Eome has retained to this 
day.* It was supposed to be sailing heavenward, 
and they referred to the expression of St. Peter — 
"So shall an entrance be ministered unto you 
abundantly" — which they endeavored to illustrate 
by the idea of a vessel making a prosperous en- 
trance into port. It was not a symbol confined to 
the Christians, but was with the heathen also a 
favorite emblem of the close of life. It may be 
seen at this day carved on a tomb near the Nea- 
politan Gate of Pompeii. Perhaps, from them the 
early fathers derived it, yet they gave it a Christian 
and more elevated meaning. The allegory of the 
ship is carried out to its fullest extent in the fifty- 

* The writer once saw a miniature ship suspended from the beani3 
of a little Indian chapel belonging to one of the Roman Catholic 
missions on the borders of Lake Superior. It was a perfectly mod- 
ern ship in all its equipments, and as unlike as possible those repre- 
sented on the tombs of the early Christians ; still, it was the same 
idea they had inherited. 



114: 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



"seventh chapter of the second book of the " Apos- 
tolical Constitutions," which is supposed to have 
been compiled in the fourth century. It is repre- 
sented also on a gem found in the Catacombs, 
where the ship is sailing on a fish, while doves, 
emblematical of the faithful, perch on the mast and 
stern ; two apostles row, a third lifts up his hands 
in prayer, and our Savior, approaching the vessel, 
supports Peter by the hand when about to sink. It 
was probably one of the signet-rings alluded to by 
Clement of Alexandria, as bearing the vavs oipavotpo- 
itovaa, the ship in full sail for heaven.* 




Sometimes the mast was drawn as a cross, in al- 
lusion to our Savior. The following, in the Lapi- 




* Padagogus, lib. iii. 




THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 115 

darian Gallery, is the usual form in which it is 
represented. 

To show the way in which it was used in these 
epitaphs, we copy one, where the simple outline of 
a ship is given, while it is referred to in the in- 
scription : — 

NABIRA IN PACE ANIMA DVLCIS 
QVI BIXIT ANOS n XVI M V 
ANIMA MELEIEA 
TITVLV FACTV 
APARENTES SIGNVM NABE 

Navira, in peace, a sweet soul, 

Who lived sixteen years and Rye months: 

A soul sweet as honey. 

This epitaph was made 

By her parents — the sign, a ship. 

It was natural, however, that the most interest- 
ing symbols to the early Christians were those 
which were connected with the life and character 
of our Lord. In the primitive days of the Church, 
both in the east and west, " He was represented as 
an abstraction, as the genius, so to speak, of Chris- 
tianity,"* and among all phe drawings in the Cata- 
combs there is but one form -in which he is por- 
trayed. It is as a beardless youth, to signify — the 
old writers tells us — "the everlasting prime of 
Eternity." 

Perhaps the most frequent character in which 
He is introduced, is that of the Good Shepherd. 
He is represented in a shepherd's dress and sandals, 
carrying the " lost sheep" on his shoulders, while 

* Lord Lindsay's Christian Art, vol. i., p. 42. 



116 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



his flock feed around or look up to liirn. Often, the 
landscape about is planted with olive-trees-, doves 
resting on their branches, symbolical of the peace 
of the faithful. Eusebius tells us that Constantine 
erected a statue of the Good Shepherd in the Forum 
at Constantinople.* The painting which we have 
copied is from the cemetery of St. Callistus. 




Another figure represents Him, a lamb with a 
cross on his head, symbolical of the Atonement, as 




* Vita Con*,, lib. iii., cap. xlix. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



117 



standing on the rock or mountain of Paradise, from 
which gush out four rivers, emblematical of the 
Evangelists. 

We now come to the scenes of His life. The 
Adoration of the Magi is a favorite subject of rep- 
resentation. In the following, from the cemetery 
of St. Marcellinus, the three wise men are portrayed 
wearing Phrygian caps. 




In another case, on a sarcophagus found in the 
cemetery of St. Sebastian, of course of a much 
later date than the former, there is an elaborate 
bas relief, in which the infant Jesus is represented 
lying in the manger with the oxen around him, 
while the Magi are approaching with their gifts, 
and the star of Bethlehem is seen above them. — 




118 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



One of the most elaborate paintings in any part 
of the Catacombs, is a representation of our Lord's 
baptism, discovered in the cemetery of Pontianus. 
It will be observed, he is portrayed standing in the 
Jordan, with John the Baptist pouring water upon 
his head with his *hand. 




Another common representation is that of our 
Lord placing his hand on the head of a child and 
blessing it. The one we have copied is from the 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



119 



cemetery of St. Callistus. We have placed by its 
side, our Lord conversing with the woman of Sama- 
ria at the well, taken from a sarcophagus in the 
Vatican. It is a scene repeated in many forms. 




We frequently meet, too,- with our Lord's trium- 
phant entrance into Jerusalem, the people with 
palm-branches and strewing their garments in the 
way, while Zacchgeus, who is the unfailing accom- 
paniment in this scene, is seen in the tree. With 
his early followers, this was not only an exhibition 
of our Lord's triumph in the days of his flesh, but 
it foreshadowed also his ultimate entrance as the 
King of Glory into the New Jerusalem. The fol- 
lowing representation is the most elaborate we 



120 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

have met with, and is taken from a sarcophagus in 
the Vatican. 




The miracles of our Savior, however, were the 
subjects on which the early Christians most de- 
lighted to dwell. Strangely represented, indeed, 
yet always in such a way that we at once recognise 
the intention and design. In the following, our 
Lord is portrayed when " a certain woman which 




THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



121 



had an issue of blood twelve years, came in the 
press behind and touched his garments ; and Jesus, 
immediately knowing in himself that virtue had 
gone out of him, turned about in the press and 
said, " Who touched my clothes ?" 

There is another of a much later date, on a sar- 
cophagus, which we copy on account of the accom- 
panying views. It brings before us a specimen of 
Church architecture in the end of the fourth cen- 
tury, to which period the details of this picture en- 
able us to refer it with tolerable certainty. We 
see before us a complete Christian basilica (appa- 
rently the same one repeated in several positions), 
with the circular baptistry at the side, yet detached 
from it. At the end of the building, on the right, 
we see the terminating absis. Before the doors 
hang those veils which are even now common in 
the Italian churches, to aid in preserving an equa- 




122 



THE CATACOMBS OF KOIIE. 





THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



123 



ble temperature, and to which St. Augustine refers 
as used at the entrances of Pagan schools (as he ex- 
presses it), " serving to conceal the ignorance that 
took refuge within." 

In the two on the preceding page, both of which 
are in the cemetery of St. Callistus, our Lord is 
touching the eyes of the blind man, and the man 
cured of the palsy obeying the command, " Arise, 
take up thy bed, and go unto thine house," 

The miracle of the loaves and fishes also fre- 
quently occurs. In the following, from the ceme- 
tery of St. Priscilla, the multitude seem to be 
kneeling with their eyes turned to our Lord, who, 
however, is not represented in the picture, as if 
just receiving the miraculously-increased food from 
his hands. At their feet we see the loaves and 
fishes, while in the lower part of the picture stand 
the " seven baskets full" that remained over. 




As the Resurrection entered so much into their 
thoughts, it was natural that they should often 
bring forward the Eaising of Lazarus from the 
dead. And it is curious to trace the progress of 
art with reference to this favorite scene. In the 



124 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



first which we copy, it is merely scratched on the 
slab, just sufficient to represent Lazarus coming 
forth from the tomb, though, perhaps, it would be 
unintelligible, were it not for other representations 
with which to compare it. The second, though 
also rudely done, is executed with more care, 
while the figure of our Lord is introduced as sum- 
moning Lazarus forth to life. In all these he is 
intended to be portrayed as " bound hand and foot 
with grave-clothes." 





The last one, from a later sarcophagus, is well 
carved, as far as each individual figure is concerned, 
though all rules of proportion are set at defiance in 
the relative size of our Lord, the mummy-like fig- 
ure of Lazarus, and his kneeling sister. (See next 
page.) 

There are numerous representations of the denial 
of St. Peter, in many of which we should be unable 
to define the subject, were it not for the accom- 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



125 




paniment of the cock. The following is copied 
from a sarcophagus in the Vatican. 




But among all these delineations there is not a 
single attempt by the early artists of the Church to 
represent our Lord's crucifixion, or any of those 



126 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

sorrows which at the end of his pilgrimage gathered 
about the Son of man. They felt that they were 
subjects for solemn thought, not to be pictured to 
the outward eye. ; The most marked allusion to 
this subject is a lamb bearing a cross. It was re- 
served for a later age of superstition, to bring be- 
fore the Church sufferings, on which our Lord's 
'first disciples were contented to meditate with sol- 
emn awe. " The agony, the crown of thorns, the 
nails, the spear, seem all forgotten in the fullness of 
joy brought by his resurrection. This is the theme, 
Christ's resurrection, and that of the Church in his 
person, on which, in their peculiar language, the 
artists of the Catacombs seem never weary of ex- 
patiating; death swallowed up in victory, and the 
victor, crowned with the amaranth wreath of im- 
mortality, is the vision ever before their eyes, with 
a vividness of anticipation which we, who have 
been born to this belief, can but feebly realize."* 
Among all the scenes which accompanied the close 
of his ministry on earth, there is but one which is 
in any way brought forward in the Catacombs, and 
this is evidently rather commemorated by his dis- 
ciples as a testimony to the innocence of their 
Lord, than from its connection with his sufferings. 
It is a mutilated bas-relief on a sarcophagus in the 
Vatican, representing Pilate, after washing his 
hands, uttering the declaration — "I am innocent 
of the blood of this just person : see ye to it." The 
empty bowl is in accordance with what is still the 
custom at the East, that, when washing, water 

* Lord Lindsay's Christian Art, v. i., p. 51. 



THE SYMBOLS IN" THE CATACOMBS. 127 

should be poured over the hands, so that it should 
not pass over them twice. 



We now turn to the symbols taken from the Old 
Testament. These are numerous, yet most of them 
had a further object than merely to bring forward a 
scene of Scripture history. Those events were se- 
lected which they supposed to be typical of some- 
thing in the dispensation which had just dawned 
upon them, and thus the Old and the New were 
linked together. It is a curious fact, indeed, that 
subjects from the Old Testament are repeated at 
least ten times more frequently than those from the 
New. "This peculiarity, whether it arose from 
reverence or fear, or want of skill, constitutes the 
most marked feature in the early Christian art of 
Rome, and distinguishes it in a very striking man- 
ner from that of Byzantium. While the ({reeks 



128 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

seem to recognise no medium between absolute 
symbolism and direct representation, Rome seems 
to have adopted from the first, and steadily adhered 
to, a system of Typical Parallelism — of veiling the 
great incidents of Redemption, and the sufferings, 
faith, and hopes of the Church, under the parallel 
and typical events of the Patriarchal and Jewish 
dispensations."* 

Beginning most naturally with that which repre- 
sents the Fall of man, we copy a painting from the 
cemetery of St. Callistus. Adam and Eve are 
standing by the tree of Knowledge, round which 
the serpent is coiled. From the " aprons of fig- 
leaves" with which they are clothed, it is evidently 
after the act of disobedience had been consum- 
mated. 




* Lord Lindsay's Christian Art, v. i.,. p. 47. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 129 

There is another representation on a sarcophagus 
in the Vatican, where our Lord (as the represent- 
ative of the Deity) stands between, condemning 
them, and offering a lamb to Eve, and a sheaf of 
corn to Adam, to signify the doom of themselves 
and their posterity to delve and to spin through all 
future ages.* 




Noah in the ark is one of the most common of 
the earliest symbols. And yet, even in the barren- 
ness of art in that day, there were no other subjects 
which displayed such poverty of invention. Often 
as it is used, the artists seemed never able to get 
beyond one form of representation. Noah is stand- 
ing in a box alone, welcoming the return of the 
dove. His family, and the other numerous inmates 
of the ark, are omitted. The one we copy, on the 
following page, is from the cemetery of St. Priscilla. 

* We copy this drawing from Iconographic Chretianic, p. 100. 
Paris, 1843. 

6* 



130 



THE CATACOMBS OF HOME. 




Tins was the invariable form. The artist seemed 
never to hazard an original idea, but contented 
himself with varying the position of the patriarch 
or the manner in which he is receiving the dove. 
This is shown in the two following, which are 
among the earliest illustrations of this scene. 





THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



131 



But with the early Christians, this was a favorite 
subject. St. Peter had consecrated it to them as a 
type,** and to them it w r as an emblem of reconcilia- 
tion and peace through baptism, while the ark sym- 
bolized the Church. 

The sacrifice of 
Abraham was natu- 
rally often used, as 
being so admirable a 
type of that Greater 
Offering, where, cen- 
turies afterward, on 
that same mount, 
" God should pro- 
vide himself a lamb 
for a burnt-offering." 
It is repeated in ev- 
ery variety of form, 
and, we are told by 
early writers, that 
Gregory of Nyssa 
frequently shed tears 
when contemplating 
this composition. We 
copy one from the 
cemetery of St. Pris- 
cilla. 

"We give another 
from the cemetery 
of St. Marcellinus, 
where the sacrifice has approached nearer to its 
completion, and the victim is already bound. 

* 1 Peter, iii. 20, 21. 




132 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 




There are several scenes in the life- of Moses 
which they were accustomed to repeat. One is, 
Moses on Mount Horeb, obeying the command, 
" Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy ground." We copy 
one from the cemetery of St. Callistus. Another, 
from the cemetery of St. Marcellinus, is Moses re- 
ceiving the Law, which was to be as a "school- 

A third, from 



master 



to bring them to Christ." 





THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



133 



the cemetery of St. Priscilla, is Moses pointing to 
the pots of manna, as shadowing him who spake of 
himself as " bread from heaven," and who gives us 
spiritual food, his body broken for our sins. 




The one most often occurring, however, is Moses 
striking water from the rock, significant of spiritual 




134 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



blessings derived to the Church through Christ 
" And that Rock was Christ." We give two illus- 
trations of this, of different ages. The first, an 
early one from the cemetery of St. Marcellinus. 
The second, from a sarcophagus discovered in the 
cemetery of St. Agnes. 




In a few instances only, we meet with the repre- 
sentations of Job, sitting in his sorrow, as in the 
above, from the cemetery of St. Marcellinus. 

One of the most spirited representations was the 
translation of Elijah, which to them was typical 
of the ascension of their Lord. We have selected 
one from the cemetery of St. Callistus, where the 
prophet, as he ascends in his chariot of fire, be- 
queaths his mantle to Elisha. It will be noticed 
that, at some later period, two tombs have been ex- 
cavated in the wall on which this drawing is made, 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 135 

obliterating the head of the prophet, and the lower 
portion of the other two figures. 




The three children in the furnace at Babylon 
represented the faithful in affliction, and in their 
deliverance were a type of the Resurrection. In 
the following, from the cemetery of St. Priscilla, 



136 



THE CATACOMBS OF KOME. 



they are portrayed rather at standing on the fur- 
nace, which some one is feeding with fuel below. 




jlllllpiH 

Jn 



WWWZ^ 




There is another in the same cemetery, as seen on 
the preceding page, which gives a much better exe- 
cuted representation of the scene, and where the 
dove is added, bringing to them the olive-branch, 
the pledge of peace and victory. 

Daniel in the lions' den taught them the same 
lesson of suffering and deliverance. The scene is 
often repeated in the most spirited manner. Take, 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 137 

for instance, the following from the cemetery of St. 
Marcellinns. 




Still more so is the following from the cemetery 
of St. Priscilla. 




We have reserved to the last of these scenes, that 
in the Old Testament on which the early Christians 
most loved to dwell — the deliverance of Jonah. 
Our Lord himself had mentioned it as a type of 
his own death and resurrection,* and it was, thero- 

* Matt, xii., 40. 



138 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



fore, eagerly seized on by those who, meeting for 
worship where a thin slab only separated them from 
the martyred dead, were ready to aid their trem- 
bling faith by any symbol which could suggest a 
life to come. It is found, therefore, in every form 
— the storm — the monster of the deep swallowing 
Jonah — the prophet again restored to land, or sit- 
ting in gloom and anger under the vine which had 
grown up about him. There is, too, every style of 
execution, from the earliest representations rudely 
scratched upon the walls, to the more finished 
sculpture in a later age displayed on the sides of 
the sarcophagi. We give one of the former class 
from a broken slab. 




In the following, from the cemetery of St. Pris- 
cilla, "the ship* 5 is reduced to a boat, and "the 
mariners" to a single individual. 

But it was not only our Lord's resurrection 
which was thus shadowed forth. It spoke to them 
also of their own course in this life, and in that 
which is to come. Sometimes, too, the Christian's 
whole existence was condensed, as it were, into 
one single view. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



139 





140 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

It would be difficult, indeed, for us to realize the 
trains of thought suggested to the early Christians, 
when they looked upon this single piece of rude 
sculpture in which, in defiance of all rule, the 
whole continuous history of Jonah was crowded 
into one scene. To them, the ship, the whale, and 
the gourd, represented the earth, the grave, and 
Heaven. And most beautiful was the idea as they 
shadowed it forth. Tempest-tossed for a time upon 
life's stormy sea, the tired voyager was obliged to 
descend into the jaws of the grave. There, for a 
season, like his Lord, he rested. Tet death was 
not permitted to retain him in its grasp. The 
grave " had no dominion over him." It must give 
up its prey. " Through the grave and gate of 
death, he must pass to his joyful resurrection." 
But then, when he has crossed the angry flood, he 
rests in security on the shore, while above him 
spread out the branches of the tree of life, its foli- 
age protected him by its shade, while partaking of 
its fruit endowed him with immortal existence.* 

In the cemetery of St. Agnes is a representation 
of the five wise virgins, as described in the parable. 
They are walking in procession, as they "went 
forth to meet the bridegroom." Each one has in 
her hand a vessel to contain the oil for her lamp, 
four have palm-branches, to denote that they are 
engaged in an act of festivity, while the first carries 
a candela, or candle made of wax, such as were 
used by the poorer classes in Eome, long after the 
houses of the more wealthy were lighted by lucer- 
n<B) or lamps. Plutarch (Qucest. Horn.) 6peaks of 

* Rev. xxii., 2. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 141 

their being used at marriages, and as they were 
borne in procession by the lower class, on the oc- 
casion of those festivities, they naturally intro- 
duced one of them in illustrating this parable. 
The lamps probably were lighted when they en- 
tered the house.* 




* We were once looking over Rock's Hierurgia, a standard Ro- 
mish work, describing the Sacrifice of the Mass, when, under the 
head of "Blessed, or Holy Water," we met with an engraving of 
this picture, with the following account: — 

"A fresco-painting in the Catacombs at Rome attests the practice 
among the primitive Christians of sprinkling holy water at their re- 
ligious assemblies. 

[Here follows the engraving given above.] 
In the Catacombs of St. Agnes out of. the Walls. (See Bottari, Roma Sottcrranea, 
torn, iii., p. 171, tav. cxlviii.) 

"On the ceiling of one of those sepulchral chambers, which have 
their entrance at the Church of St. Agnes out of the Walls are de- 
picted five figures, each holding in one hand a vase, denominated 
situlus, similar to those in which the holy water is at present carried 
about in our ceremonies. Four of these figures support in the right 
hand branches, as it would appear, of the palm-tree ; but the fifth 
bears elevated a tufted aspergillum, which exactly corresponds to 
the one which is still employed at the ceremony of sprinkling holy 
water." — Rock's Hierurgia, p. 463. 

We would first remark, that Bottari did not write the Roma Sot* 
terranea. It was the result of thirty years' labor by Bosio, and was 
edited after his death by Severano. It was translated into Lai in, 
and again published by Arringhi, as the Roma Subterranea. Bot- 



142 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

On some of the tombs we find a figure portrayed, 
with the hands elevated in the act of prayer. It 
was one of the earliest symbols used, and remained 
unchanged even when repeated in the more finished 
fresco-paintings of later times. In this inscription, 
a female is thus represented, while a dove stands 
at her feet. 



C0NSTANT1US 

BECL£ CONJVGI 

QUE VIXIT MECUM 
ANNOSXK.BI 




There were a number of other emblems pictured 
in the Catacombs, which were derived from allu- 

tari wrote, " Sculture e pitture sagre" (see preface to this volume). 
We confess we were rather startled at this picture and its plausi- 
ble exposition, as in none of our own researches on this subject had 
we found any trace of the use of holy water. However, we turned, 
as directed, to the Roma Subterranea^ and there, at their own ref- 
erence, we did find this picture engraved. But unfortunately for 
them, in this work, the joint production of several distinguished 
Roman writers, it is described as the five wise virgins. The " tuft- 
ed aspergillum" proves to be a candella, while a few 
strokes of the engraver had rendered the flame more 
similar to a tuft. To give the title of the picture in 
the very words used in the Roma Subterranea — " Pru- 
dentes quinque virgines olei vasa cum lampadibns def- 
erentes" (five wise virgins carrying vessels of oil with 
lamps). 

We have had some practice in detecting Romish frauds, yet we 
never remember to have seen one more beautiful than this in its de- 
sign and execution. 




THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 



143 



sions in scripture. Of these, the dove, as intro- 
duced above, was often used. It seems the most 
natural one that could be adopted, both from the 
recollection of our Lord's baptism, and from its 
character harmonizing so well with that faith in 
which it was a symbol. We wonder not, then, 
that it was used by the primitive Christians to em- 
body their ideas of gentleness and peace. In some 
cases, indeed, the word peace is added, while the 
dove bears also an olive branch, derived undoubt- 
edly from the history of Noah, as in the following. 




PAY 



As this was one of the earliest used, there is no 
emblem which is more rudely represented, as in 
the following. 




144 



THE CATACOMBS OF EOME. 



FEU CI 




In the following, the praying figure is also repre- 
sented. 




HEME. 
CAUNO* BER.EtfTl 




It is often united with other emblems, as in the 
following epitaph, where the fish also is portrayed. 




QVi vixrr 

AfcTNIS»Vl 



iviE^smvsiml 




In addition to these were the palm — which we 
have already noticed; the stag, as represented in 
the picture we have given of the baptism of our 
Lord, by John, to show " the hart which thirsteth 
after the water brooks ;" the hare, the timid Chris- 
tian hunted by persecutors ; the lion, the emblem 
of the tribe of Juda ; and the phcenix and peacock, 
shadowing forth the resurrection. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 145 




The cock is frequently introduced as the emblem 
of vigilance, derived from the reproof of St. Peter, 
where we have shown it portrayed. On many of 
the tombs, too, we have the crown as the symbol 
of victory. The following is often its form. 




It is here joined with the monogram of our Lord's 
name, as it is on this tomb, where it is also united 
with the dove. (See page 146.) 

We have thus given all the principal symbols 
found in the Catacombs, to enable the roader to 
form a clear idea of thosfc dark retreats iii which 

7 



146 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



\ I 



^CYR!AO£ PVLCISS1M>€ DEPOSITS 
IH ?ACE VIXIT. ANNOS XXXV 



the infant Church of Rome was nurtured into 
strength and manhood? It is generally easy to 
tell the age of an epitaph. The earliest were in- 
variably rude in the extreme, while they gradually 
improved as the Church became more free from 
persecution, and its members were enabled in peace 
and safety to lay their brethren to their rest. There 
is a wide difference, therefore, between the hastily 
Bcratched emblems of the first century, and the 
more carefully executed representations of Scrip- 
ture scenes in the fourth. Yet, with regard to all 
of them, we can not but adopt the language of 
Lord Lindsay : " Considered as works of art, it 
must be confessed, they are but poor productions 
— the meagerness of invention only equalled by 
the feebleness of execution — inferior, generally 
speaking, to the worst specimens of contemporary 
heathen art. There is little to wonder at in this, 
when we remember the oppressed condition of the 
Christians at the time, and (I am afraid I must add) 
the poverty of imagination which uniformly char- 
acterized Rome, even in her palmy period. ' ? * 
But it is with far different views from those of 



* Clmttio.n Art, \o\. i., p. S9. 



THE SYMBOLS IN THE CATACOMBS. 147 

artistic criticism that we have dwelt upon these 
symbols. It was in these illustrations that the 
primitive Christians wrote their creed, and we 
wished to show the purity and simplicity of their 
faith. Among these thousands of emblems and 
scenes, there are none which countenance the 
errors having their origin in later days, and which 
still deform the Church of Rome. The early Chris- 
tians may often have been singularly unskilful in 
embodying the thought they wished to express, yet 
still the idea was right and in accordance with 
Scripture truth. Considering, indeed, the station 
and character of the early converts — looked upon 
by the rest of the world as " the offscouring of all 
things," just reclaimed from heathenism — listening 
to a teaching which was often interrupted, and 
whose benefits they enjoyed at the peril of their 
lives, it is truly wonderful how little of the errors 
of their lately-abandoned systems was mingled 
with their faith. But we see that these representa- 
tions were not executed by those revelling in luxu- 
rious ease. They tell of times of peril and conflict. 
They show the purity of an age which was refined 
in the furnace of affliction, and in suffering and fear 
clung with steadfastness to the essential verities of 
the faith. 



VII. 



MINISTRY AND RITES OF THE EARLY CHURCH, 



VII. 

MINISTRY AND BITES OP THE EARLY CHURCH. 

We should naturally expect in the burial places 
of the early Christians, to find some recognition of 
the different orders of the ministry. Nor in this 
case are we disappointed. It is generally, it is 
true, a mere reference, for the inscriptions are too 
brief to admit of more. Yet these few words con- 
firm the views entertained by the great body of the 
Christian world with regard to the polity and gov- 
ernment of the early Church. 

We turn first to the office of bishops. On the 
walls of the Lapidarian Gallery is an epitaph which 
clearly indicates this rank, by the use of the word 
Papa or Father, which in that age was applied to 
the bishops. For instance, in all the epistles ad- 
dressed by the Roman clergy to Cyprian, bishop 
of Carthage, he is styled " the blessed Father 
(Papa) Cypri." We know not who the bishop was 
over whom this inscription was written, yet the 
reference to a perpetual seat, and the title papa 
sanctissimus, in the phraseology of that ago show 



152 THB CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

episcopal rank. The consulship to which it refers 
fixes the date at A. D. 392.* 

PERPETVAM SEDEM NVTRITOR POSSIDES IPSE 
HIC MERITVS FINEM MAGNIS DEFVNCTE PERICLIS 
HIC REQVIEM FELIX SVMIS COGENTIBVS ANNIS 
HIC POSITVS PAPA SANTIMIOO VIXIT ANNIS LXX 
DEPOSITVS DOMINO NOSTRO ARCADIO II ET FL 
RVINO 
VVCCSS NONAS NOBEMB. 

You, our nursing father, occupy a perpetual seat, being dead, and 
deserving an end of your great dangers. Here happy, you find 
rest, bowed down with years. Here lies the most holy father, who 
lived ?0 year* Buried on the nones of November, our Lords Arca- 
diui» £tr tiw ■ * — n d time, and Flavius Rufinus, being consuls. 

The following inscription (Arringhi, lib. iii., cap. 
iii.) records the burial place of one of the second 
order in the ministry : — 

LOCVS BASILI PRESB ET FELICITATI EIVS 
SIBI FECERVNT. 

The burial-place of Basilus the Presbyter, and Felicitas his wife. 
They made it for themselves. 

So also this, which we likewise copy from Ar- 
ringhi : — 

LOCVS VALENTINI PRESB. pf 
The place of Valentinian, the presbyter. 

In another case, there is a reference merely to 
the pastoral office of the departed : — 

ACATIVS • PASTOR. 
Aca tiiis, the pastor. 

This brief inscription is inscribed upon the tomb 
of one of the lowest order of the ministry : — 

* Jfaitland, p. 185, . 



RITES, ETC., OP THE EARLY CHURCH. 153 

LOCVS EXVPERANTI 
DIACON. 

The place of Exuperantius, the deacon. 

But there were other offices in the early Church, 
not always included in the ranks of the ministry, 
but often serving as a preparation for it. Such are 
the lectors, or readers, whose duty it was to read 
the Scriptures aloud in the Church. It was an 
honorable office to which persons of the greatest 
dignity were sometimes appointed. Thus, Julian, 
the apostate, was reader in the church at Nicome- 
dia.* They were sometimes admitted to this office 
by a kind of ordinafTon, as Cyprian speaks of one 
who had been a confessor, and whom he had " or- 
dained to the office of lector." 

In some cases, they were appointed at a very 
early age. Parents dedicated their children to the 
service of God from their infancy, and they were 
then trained and disciplined in these inferior offices, 
to prepare them for higher usefulness in the Church. 
Repeated instances are given of their being appoint- 
ed at the age of seven and eight years, and a writer 
of that day, in describing the barbarity of the Van- 
dals in murdering the clergy of Carthage, adds — 
" Among them were many infant readers."f At a 
later period this was altered, when by one of Jus- 
tinian's Novels, it was "forbidden that any one be 
ordained reader before he was completely eighteen 
years old." 

This explanation will enable us to understand the 
two following inscriptions, and particularly the 

* Socrat. % lib. iii., c. 1. f Bing. Orig. Eccles. t lib. iii., c 5. 

7* 



154 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

youthfulness of the lector commemorated in the 
second. The Velabrum, where he was employed, 
is the part of Rome in which are situated the arch 
of Janus, and the Cloaca Maxima. 

CLAVDIVS-ATTICIA 

NVS- LECTOR 

ET CLAVDIA 

FELICISSIMA 

COIVX 

Claudius Atticianus, the reader, and Claudia Felicissima, Lis wife. 

LOCVS AVGVSTI X 
LECTORIS DEBELA 
BRV 
DEPSVRICA y XGKALy 

AVGy 

QYE YIXIT AN1SOS 
• PMXII CONS 
SEBERINI. 
The place of Augustus, lector in the Velabrum, buried in a 
mound, on the 15th Kalends of August He lived twelve years 
more or less. In the consulship of Severinus. 

Another order in the Church in those days was 
that of the exorcists. We know, both from Scrip- 
ture and the writings of the early fathers, that 
Satan in that age exercised strange influence over 
the bodies of men, while miraculous power was 
granted to the members of the Church, to cast him 
out. At first, it is supposed, this power was pos- 
sessed by any of the followers of our Lord, as Ter- 
tullian challenges the heathen, that "if they would 
bring any person possessed with a devil into open 
court before the magistrate, any ordinary Christian 
should make him confess that he was a devil."* 

* Apologeticus, cap. 23. 



RITES, ETC., OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 155 

But with the withdrawal of extraordinary and 
miraculous power, which probably took place by 
degrees, and not at the same time in all places, the 
order of the exorcists became a settled one in the 
Church. We find this title given to an individual 
at the close of this inscription : — 

IANVARIVS • EXORCISTA 

S1BI • ET • CONIVGI • FECIT. 

Januarius, the exorcist, made this for himself and his wife. 

The order of the fossors is one less known at the 
present day. They were an inferior order of the 
clergy in the primitive Church, whose business was 
to take care of funerals, and provide for the decent 
interment of the dead, particularly of the poor ; an 
office, whose duties, in tiules of persecution, were 
not discharged without peril. "The first order 
among the clergy," says St. Jerome, " is that of 
the fossarii, who, after the example of holy Tobias, 
are admonished to bury the dead."* They re- 
ceived their name of fossarii from their digging 
the graves. Useful as their office must have been 
in all parts of the Church, it was particularly so 
among those whose lives were so much spent in 
those galleries of stone, from which their last rest- 
ing-place was to be hollowed out. "We copy three 
inscriptions, in the first of which the word fossor 
has been misspelt. 

TERENTIVS-FOSOR 

PRIMITIVE -COIVGI 

ET-SIBI. 

Terentius, the fossor. For Primitive, his wife, and himself. 

* S. Hicron. de Sept. Grculibxu Ecci. 



15« 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 




SEELIX FOSSOR 

IXIT ANNIS LXIII. 

Felix, the fossor, lived sixty-three years. 

MAIO FOSSORI. 
To Maius, the fossor. 

There were formerly many paintings in the Cata- 
combs, the rude attempts of survivors to represent 
the occupations of those they had here laid to their 
last rest. Among these none were more numerous 
than delineations of the fossors, sometimes employed 
in excavating an overhanging rock, with a lamp 
suspended near them, as ill the following. 




One of them in particular, which was found by 
Boldetti, bears over it the inscription : — 



RITES, ETC., OF THE EARLY CIIURCH. 157 

DIOGENES • FOSSOR ■ IN ' PACE • DEPOSITVS 
OCTABV • KALENDAS • OCTOBRI& 

Diogenes, the fossor, buried in peace, on the eighth kalends of 
October. 

It represents the fossor standing, surrounded by 
all the implements of his calling. In his hands are 
the pickaxe and lamp, the latter hanging by the 
chain and spike by which he was accustomed to 
suspend it to the rock. At his feet lay the cutting 
instruments and compasses, used for marking out 
the graves. He seems to be standing in a circular 
chapel surrounded by tombs ; on different parts of 
his woollen tunic is figured the cross, and on each 
side of the arch above him is represented the dove 
with the olive-branch, the usual emblem of Chris- 
tian peace. 

We copy two more of these representations, se- 
lecting the most simple we can find. In the first, 
the fossor is portrayed digging with a 6pade. In 
the second, he is cutting down a rock. 




158 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



There is another given by Arringhi, which con- 
tains his name and occupation. Here the word 
fosrotfimts is supposed to stand for fossor trophy- 

MYS. 

fosuotfimvs J> 




In the early Church, there was a class of females 
who, separating themselves entirely from all world- 
ly interests, devoted their days to the service of 
God. Sometimes it was in widowhood; and it is 
to them that St. Paul refers, when he describes the 
qualifications necessary for those who would thus 
devote themselves for life to Christian labors: 
" Let not a widow be taken into the number under 
threescore years old, having been the wife of one 
man, well-reported of for good works; if she have 
brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, 
if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have re- 



KITES, ETC., OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 159 

lieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed 
every good work. But the younger widows refuse : 
for when they have begun to wax wanton against 
Christ, they will marry ; having damnation, be- 
cause they have cast off their first faith."* The 
council of Chalcedon forbid any to be admitted to 
the order of consecrated women, called in that age 
ministrce, under the age of forty. It is for such a 
one that the following inscription was written : — 

OC-TA-VI-AE-MA-TRO-NA- 
VI-DV-AE-DE-I. 

To Octavia, a matron, widow of God. 

Nor was this confined to those alone whose state 
was that of widowhood. For there were others, too, 
who were willing, in singleness and voluntary pov- 
erty, to forego the comforts of domestic life, that 
they might have nothing to impede them in their 
Christian labors. We can easily imagine, in a 
state of society like that of primitive times, when 
the rage of persecution was constantly rending the 
dearest ties, there must have been many whose 
only earthly hope was swept away, and who would 
gladly devote themselves for the remainder of their 
days to the self-denying duties of their faith. These 
are they to whose voluntary consecration to a life 
of sacrifice and toil the advocates of Christianity 
were accustomed to point, in comparison with the 
half dozen Vestal Virgins, the only parallel which 
paganism could furnish.f We copy an inscription 
referring to one of this class. 

* 1 Tim., v. 9. f Prud. cont. Symmachum, lib. 2. 



160 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 






IURIA. HELPHIS 

VIRGO DEVOTA 



Furia Elpis, a consecrated virgin. 

There is another of the same kind, given by Ar- 
ringhi (lib. iii., c. xi., p. 272). 

HOC EST 

SEPVLCHRVM SANCT^E 

LVCIN^E VIRGINIS. 

This is the sepulchre of the holy Virgin Lucina. 

The following epitaph is that of a catechumen, 
for in primitive times the training of the Church 
began from the earliest age. 

VCILIANVS BACIO VALERIO 

QVI BISIT-AN VIII- 

VIII -DIES XXII CATECVM. 

Ucilianus, to Bacius Valerius, a catechumen, who lived nine years, 
eight months, and twenty-two days. 

In the Catacombs of St. Agnes are two curious 
crypts, which are stated to have been used for the 
training of the catechumens. Soon after entering 
this cemetery, we come to two square vaulted 
chambers, one of which contains a massive stone 
chair, which is said to have been occupied by the 
priest or catechist in giving instruction. In the 



RITES, ETC., OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 



161 



other, we find a chair on each side of the doorway 
leading into the inner crypts. They are hewn out 
of the solid tufa rock, while there ia a bench of 
the same material running round the wall of the 
apartment. We give a view of the latter, copied 
from Arringhi (lib. iv., ch. xxv., p. 81). 




Tradition states that this second chair marks the 
chamber set apart for the catechizing of females, 
and was probably used by the deaconess in whose 
charge they were placed. The position of these 
chambers near the entrance of the Catacombs, 
would afford the disciples easy access to their 
teacher, and these, particulars combine to strength- 
en the view that these crypts were probably for 
this primary teaching given to catechumens. 

AVe may, however, go a step further back than 
tliis ; for in some of the chapels in the Catacombs 
fonts have been discovered, showing that the bap- 
tismal rite was performed in these secret retreats. 



162 



THE CATACOMBS OF SOME. 



The following inscription from one of these in the 
Lapidarian Gallery, seems intended to convey the 
same idea as the words— "Arise, and be baptized, 
and wash away thy sins."* 

CORPORIS ET CORDIS MACVLAS YITALI 
•PVRGAT ET OHNE SIMVL . ABLVITVND. 

The living stream cleanses the spots of body as well as of heart, 
and at the same time washes away all (sin). 

But there is one important truth which we think 
we learn from these inscriptions, and that is, the 
fact of Infant Baptism. We meet with the epi- 
taphs of children who are called neophytes, a title 
which, of course, could not have been bestowed 
upon them unless they had been received by bap- 
tism into the Church. The age at which they died 
precludes the idea of that rite having been admin- 
istered to them in any way but as infants : — 

ROMANO NEOFITO 
BEXEMERENTI QVI VI 
XIT-ANNOS-VIII- 
To Romanus, the well-deserving neophyte, who lived eight years. 




• FL • IOVIN A • QVAE - VIX 

• ANNIS • TRIBVS - D • XXX 
• NEOFITA - IN PACE • XI .K. 

Flavia Jovina, who lived three years and thirty days, a neophyte. 
In peace (she died), the eleventh kalends. 

* Acts, xxii., 16. 



RITES, ETC., OF THE EARLY CHTTRCH. 163 

TEG - CANDIDVS NEOF 

Q VXT • M XXI • DP NON 

SEP. 

The tile of Candidus the neophyte, who lived twenty-one months, 
buried on the nones of September. 

There is but one more custom of the primitive 
Church which we shall illustrate from these inscrip- 
tions. In those early ages, the followers of our Lord 
held at times a common feast where all met together 
as disciples of the same master, and intended to show 
the chain of brotherhood which bound them in one 
body. It was called the Agape, or love-feast. The 
spirit which originated it was beautiful, and in ac- 
cordance with every precept of our faith, showing 
that " the rich and the poor meet together, and the 
Lord is the maker of them all." It generally either 
preceded or followed the administration of the Eu- 
charist ; and it is supposed to have been this con- 
nection which led to the abuses St. Paul condemned, 
when he wrote : " When ye come together, there- 
fore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's 
supper. For in eating, every one taketh before 
other his own supper: and one is hungry and an- 
other is drunken. What, have ye not houses to eat 
and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, 
and shame them that have not ?"* St. Jude, too, 
mentions it in the passage — "These are spots in 
your agapse," & mis ayanatg vpw — translated in our ver- 
sion, " feasts of charity ."f 

Tcrtullian, in the second century, in a single pas- 
sage describes its object and the manner of its ad- 
ministration : " Our supper, which you accuse of 

* 1 Cor. xl t 20. f St- Judo, v. 12. 



164 THB CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

luxury, shows its object in its very name. For it 
is called <iyam, which among the Greeks signifies 
Love. "Whatever charge we are at, it is a gain, as 
it is an expense upon the account of piety. For 
therewith we relieve and refresh the poor. There 
is nothing vile or immodest committed in it. For 
we do not sit down before we have first offered up 
prayer to God. We eat only to satisfy hunger, and 
drink only so much as becomes modest persons. 
We regale ourselves in such a manner, as that we 
remember still that we are to worship God by night. 
We discourse as in the presence of God, knowing 
that he hears us. Then, after water to wash our 
hands, and lights brought in, every one is moved to 
sing some hymn to God, either out of Scripture, or 
as he is able, of his own composing. Prayer again 
concludes our feast."* 

As, however, the Church grew and extended, and 
the days of persecution passing away, crowds half- 
Christianized entered its fold from the heathen 
world, this simple feast degenerated into an occa- 
sion of revelry, which brought scandal on the faith. 
Therefore it was that St. Augustine uttered his in- 
dignant charge against 6ome in the African Church 
— "The martyrs hear your bottles: the martyrs 
hear your drunken revels." In the fifth century, 
therefore, this rite was entirely abolished, as a cus- 
tom unsuited to the altered condition of the Church. 

In a retired crypt of the Catacombs of St. Mar- 
cellinus, is a rudely-designed picture (which we 
copy from Arringhi, lib. iv., cap. xiv.) representing 
this ancient rite, and more interesting to us, there- 

* Apol, cap. xxxbc 



RITES, ETC., OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 165 

fore, as a relic of Christian antiquity, than the tri- 
umphal arches and trophies which remain of the 
faded grandeur of Imperial Eome. 



fl^* ft$@Hl 




In the foreground, at the end of the table, are 
seated two matrons, who preside, personifying 
Peace and Love, with their names written above 
their heads in the Etruscan fashion. At the table 
itself three guests are seated, while a page supplies 
them with food from a small round table in front, 
containing a lamb and a cup. The inscriptions are 
abbreviated, but should be read thus : "Irene, da 
caldam aquam" (Peace, give hot water) ;* "Agape, 
misce mi vinum" (Love, mix me wine). 

The representations of these solemn feasts was 
often repeated, in both sculptures and paintings, 
showing how general in that age was the custom. 

* The ancients always mixed water with wine. This was some- 
times iced and sometimes hot Thus Martiul says: — 

M Caldam poscis aquam, sed nondum frigida venit" 
You ask for hot water, but the cold has not yet come\ 



166 THE CATACOMBS OF HOME. 

It was founded certainly on an unworldly idea, and 
one which Christianity alone could have origina- 
ted. Look then at such an assembly, as one by 
one, in silence and by stealth, they gather at their 
place of meeting. It is in the Eternal City, which 
is crimson with the blood of the earliest martyrs, 
and the name of Jesus of Nazareth is a forbidden 
sound within its walls. But scattered through its 
crowded thousands — even within sight of its Pan- 
theon of gods — are the true-hearted, and joyfully 
they turn to their place of worship when the ap- 
pointed time has come. Secretly they pass the 
gates, and steal across the Esquiline Hill, and de- 
scending into the Catacombs, thread their way 
through its narrow passages. The barriers of race 
and country — of rank and caste — are broken 
down, and for the first time in the world's history 
all are brethren. The swarthy Syrian is there — 
the slave indeed of an earthly master — yet here a 
freeman in Christ Jesus and a brother beloved for 
the faith's sake. Beside him is the intellectual 
Athenian, but he has learned a nobler philosophy 
than that of Greece, and found that the truest wis- 
dom was to bow at the foot of the cross. And 
there, too, is the Jewish priest, shocked no longer 
by the presence of " they of the uncircumcision," 
but overcoming the narrow exclusiveness of his 
race, prepared to welcome the Jewish converts 
around him as inheritors of the same promises. 
It is an hour with them of holy joy, when the 
trials of the outward world are forgotten, its cares 
thrown aside, and their souls strengthened for that 
coming future in which they know not what shall 



KITES, ETC., OF THE EAKLY CHURCH. 



167 



await them. And when they part, they realize that 
before they meet again, some among them may win 
the crown of martyrdom. 

It would be interesting, did our space allow, to 
copy some of the figures in clerical dress portrayed 
in these frescos. We have mentioned in the first 
chapter, the resemblance which struck Mr. Cole, 
between these and the garments now in use in the 
Church. The resemblance is certainly much great- 
er to our surplice and stole than to the short gar- 
ment used under that name in the modern Church 
of Rome. We will give one as a specimen, taken 
from the cemetery of St. Callistus. It is of a 
priest in the attitude of prayer, and we think the 
fact we have mentioned will at once strike the 
most casual observer. 




Thus it is that we glean from these memorials on 
the rock and in the caverns, the characteristics of 
the early Church. Yet while everything speaks 



168 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

to us of trial and suffering — of a Church for which 
concealment in " the dens and caves of the earth" 
was necessary — all tells also of peace and purity 
within its own borders. The foot of pride had not 
yet come nigh to hurt its members, nor worldly 
prosperity cast its blight over the freshness of 
their early faith. And in this way it was, that 
the true-hearted learned their lessons of patience 
and courage, and were prepared to go forth and 
inherit the earth. 



VIII. 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 



VIII. 

THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 

The contrast is a strange one as we emerge from 
these gloomy retreats to the light and glory of an 
Italian day. The breath of flowers, as it comes up 
to us on the scented air, is doubly grateful from 
the hot, oppressive atmosphere we have breathed 
in these close windings. Yet how different the 
prospect which meets our eyes from that on which 
the early Christians looked, when in fear and trem- 
bling they came forth from these hiding places! 
The " Seven Hills" are there, and the wide plain 
still stretches out before us, and yonder are the 
purple Alban hills glowing in the beauty which 
has marked them for two thousand years ; yet all 
else is changed. The Campagna, once alive with 
the habitations of countless thousands, is now deso- 
late and waste. The marble temples of ancient 
Rome have passed away — the mouldering relics 
only are before us — and instead of the life and en- 
ergy which marked the Mistress of the World, an air 
of venerable antiquity rests upon the city, and si- 
lence has gathered over the wide-spread landscape. 



172 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

Yet stranger far than these outward and physical 
changes, is that which shows the mighty revolution 
which has taken place in faith, since Rome was the 
centre and home of the old mythology, and her soil 
was drunk with the blood of the early saints. The 
persecutors, for fear of whom the Christians then 
retreated to these dark crypts — where are they? 
There is the arch of Titus, whose sculptured panels 
tell the story of Judea's fall ; and as we see the tri- 
umphal procession, and the captives bearing the 
sacred vessels of the temple amid their mocking 
conquerors, we learn how powerless have become 
the earliest enemies of the faith. 

And where is the kingly power of Rome, from 
which came forth those edicts condemning the 
faithful to the wild beasts and the sword? Look at 
that hill, which lies between us and the walls. It 
seems covered with a mass of mighty ruins, as if 
destruction there had fallen on some splendid city 
and changed its stately magnificence to crumbling 
walls and prostrate columns. That is the Palatine 
Hill, and those are the ruins of Nero's Golden 
House ; and there the trees twine their roots 
through marble floors once trodden by the Mas- 
ters of the World, and the tall grass and rank weeds 
wave above them in wild luxuriance. A solitary 
building raises its white walls in the midst of all 
this desolation, hourly the sound of a bell is wafted 
through the air, and those who are lingering round 
hear a low chant borne faintly to their ears ; for 
that is the monastery of the Capuchin monks, and 
their prayers and anthems have replaced the sen- 
sual revellings of the Caesars. 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 173 

And the ancient paganism, too, like the civil 
power which supported it, has vanished as a 
dream. There is the Capitoline hill, which once 
had its fifty shrines, yet no smoke ascends from its 
height — no altars are seen — the temples which 
once crowned it are gone, and their columns and 
precious marbles have been used to erect the 
Christian churches. Beside it is the church of S. 
Maria d'Ara Coeli, built on the foundation of the 
old Roman temple of Jupiter Feretrius, in which 
the sjjolia opima w r ere deposited ; and if it is the 
hour when the shadows of evening are beginning 
to gather, the vesper hymn of the monks will be 
borne plaintively to our ears. Below, by the side 
of the deserted Forum, are the ancient temples of 
Antoninus and Faustus, of Venus and Borne, now 
consecrated by Christian names to the use of that 
faith which has supplanted heathenism, while be- 
yond, grand and solemn, rise the massive ruins of 
the Flavian amphitheatre. There Ignatius died, 
and the blood of countless martyrs enriched its 
sands, as they were " butchered to make a Roman 
holyday." But now, the once despised cross stands 
in the middle of the arena, and often the voice of 
some humble monk may be heard on that spot, as 
he preaches the faith of the Crucified, and his ear- 
nest appeals send strange echoes through those gal- 
leries, which once rang with the shouts of infuriated 
thousands, who were feasting their eyes on the tor- 
ments of the expiring Christians. We turn away 
from these scenes, and the Imperial City is before 
us in all her solemn and venerable magnificence. 
Yet she has put off all trace of her heathen origin. 



174 THE CATACOMBS OF HOME. 

A wilderness of towers, and domes, and columns, 
are there, rising in the deep blue of an Italian sky 
— yet each pinnacle is gleaming with its cross — 
each edifice is devoted to the worship of Him, 
whom once it was death here to name with aught 
of reverence. And towering above all — on the 
very spot where once were Nero's gardens, and 
which witnessed the martyrdom of countless Chris- 
tians — swells forth that miracle of art, St. Peter's 
dome, surmounting the noblest structure the world 
lias ever seen, yet now the shrine of a faith before 
whose resistless march the ancient paganism of 
Rome w r as trampled into the dust. 

Would that the contrast could end here — that 
we could speak only of the triumphs of this cause ! 
Yet we fear a change has passed, also, over the 
spirit of the Church, and the faith now taught in 
the multitude of temples which adorn the streets 
of modern Rome, differs widely from that which 
the early disciples learned amid the recesses of the 
Catacombs. But on this point we are not left to 
mere speculation. The first generations of the 
faithful left behind them the evidences of their 
belief and practice, as the living inscribed above 
the dead the faith in which they were laid to their 
rest. These crypts, therefore, furnish a valuable 
chapter for ecclesiastical history, for we derive 
from them an unerring testimony with regard to 
the belief of those who first professed the Christian 
name in Rome. The early martyrs, by whom they 
were for a long while peopled, u being dead, still 
speak." They tell their own simple faith and de- 
votion by the changeless emblems which are as ex- 



TFTK CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 



175 



pressive as words. And as we trace these pictured 
inscriptions down through successive generations, 
they unfold to us the gradual change which crept 
over the feelings of the Church. 

We will take up some few of these in succession. 
A better illustration of this gradual departure from 
primitive simplicity can not be found, than that 
exhibited by the alteration which from age to age 
took place in the sign of the cross. To the Jew 
and the heathen, only the revolting instrument of 
the lowest and mo$t degrading punishment, that to 
be feared by none but the basest criminal or the 
most wretched slave, the early Christians were 
able at once to divest it of all such humiliating 
associations, and it became the primal, and, for a 
long time, the sole symbol of Christianity. Yet 
we find it nowhere in the early inscriptions of the 
Catacombs, except as it has been already copied in 
these pages, in its simplest form of two straight 
lines. It is thus represented on this tomb. 




If any addition is made, the same simple form 
of the cross is preserved, only it is represented 
as crowned with flowers, or with a dove, the em- 
blem of peace. For in that age it was a token of 
joy — a sign of gladness — a pledge of the Chris- 
tian's victory. It took centuries for it to become 
what the Church of Rome afterward portrayed it, 



176 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

a thing of tears and suffering— a subject to enable 
the artist to display the height of intense agony. 
Yet thus, at last, it grew into a wretched repre- 
sentation of the Passion, in a crucifix with figure 
the size of life, smeared with the imitation of 
blood, and surmounted by a crown of actual thorns. 

And yet, as we said, we can easily trace on the 
monuments of antiquity, the steps by which the 
cross grew into the crucifix and the bleeding 
agony of our Lord. The first addition was a lamb 
placed at its feet. The next stage was our Lord, 
clothed, extended on the cross, but not nailed to it, 
his hands uplifted in prayer. Then came the de- 
lineation of the sufferer fastened to the cross with 
four nails, yet still living, and with open eyes. It 
was not till the tenth or eleventh century that he 
was represented as dead. This is the progress of 
the change, as stated by Cardinal Bona, a view, the 
correctness of which has been acknowledged by 
most subsequent writers. It is a view certainly 
sustained by all the symbols in these crypts. 
" The Catacombs of Rome," says Milman, " faith- 
ful to their general character, offer no instance of 
a crucifixion, nor does any allusion to such a sub- 
ject of art occur in any early writer."* 

And the expression of our Lord passed through 
a corresponding series of changes. The erect head, 
sharing somewhat of the Divinity, by degrees 
drooped with the agony of pain. Then the face 
became wan and furrowed, and death with its 
deepest anguish was all that art aimed to portray. 
The Divinity had entirely faded away, and nothing 

* Eccles. Hist, lib. iv., c. 4. 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 177 

remained but mere corporeal suffering — the earths 
]y and the physical, deprived of all that was ten- 
der and sublime. But for this change we must 
look to the monkish artists of the Lower Empire, 
while those of the order of St. Basil introduced it 
into the West. It owed its form to the gloomy- 
fancy of anchorites, who had brought it to a depth 
of degradation from which it required all the won- 
derful magic of Italian art to elevate it into sub- 
limity.* To dignify their degrading and earthly 
conceptions it was necessary that a school of Chris- 
tian art should arise, whose devotional style first 
gave character to the frescos of Giotto, and attained 
its maturity under the almost inspiration of Raphael 
— a school of artists, who 

" Never moved their hand, 
Till they had steeped their inmost soul in prayer." 

But did not each step display a proportionate 
change in the spirit of reverence which had marked 
the primitive Church? Fond as the early Chris- 
tians were of delineating the different scenes of our 
Lord's history, in all their pictures and sculptures, 
no attempt had been made to show his sufferings 
or death. They seem to have shrank from this 
with reverential awe. They often, as we have seen, 
pictured him as the Good Shepherd, bearing a 
lamb upon his shoulders, but never as expiring on 
the cross. They felt that this was a theme for 
holy meditation, but not to be shadowed forth ac- 
cording to the artist's earthly and degrading con- 
ceptions. Even when representing the three Hc- 

* Eccles. Hist., lib. iv., c. 4. 

s* 



173 TIIE CATACOMBS OF KOME. 

brew youths in the mighty furnace, on the plains 
of Dura, we notice that the fourth figure, "like 
unto the Son of God," is always omitted. 

And was not that a loftier feeling which was 
content to worship him in his Divinity, while it 
shrank from coarsely delineating the corporeal 
pangs which weighed down his humanity? AVe 
feel, indeed, when we descend to the tenth and 
eleventh centuries, and see the Byzantine paintings 
in the cabinet of the Vatican library, representing 
our Loed as the " man of sorrows," covered with 
triangular splashes of blood, with a face indicative 
of hopeless anguish, that we have turned to a dark 
page in the history of Christendom. We have lost 
all that was ideal and divine. "The sky of sacred 
art darkened as the Savior's countenance, its proper 
sun, shed a more disastrous light over its scenes 
of wo ; till the last glimmering of Divine Majesty 
suffered total eclipse from the exclusive display of 
agonized humanity."* Such is the wide gulf 
which in sacred art alone separates the ancient 
and modern Church of Rome. 

So, too, was it with regard to the First Person 
of the Trinity. The primitive Christians never 
represented the Father in a human form. No- 
where do we trace any of that gross profanity — 
that absence of all reverential spirit — which now 
is seen in every gallery in Italy, where the Father 
of the universe is delineated as an old man with 
flowing white hair and beard. There are amonor 
the sculptures of the Catacombs only two instances 
where even a symbol is used to portray his pies- 

* Maitland, p. 16G. 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 



179 



ence. These are in representations of Abraham 
offering up Isaac, and Moses receiving the law. 
In the first of these, a hand stretching out from 
heaven and arresting his weapon, denotes the in- 
terposition of the Deity ; while in the second, the 
hand is encircled by clouds, as if to show more 
strongly its symbolic character. These are found 
on sarcophagi, now in the library of the Vatican. 




The early fathers would have shrunk with horror 
from the corporeal representations of "the King 
invisible,"* which now are to be seen on the walls 
of every Romish church — attempts to which we 
can not be reconciled even by the genius of 
Michael Angelo. Their prohibitions of any such 
visible representations of God, were most frequent 
* 1 Tim. i., 17. 



180 



THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 



and explicit. M. Emeric David, in his Discours 
sur les Anciens Monumens, says, that French 
artists, in the ninth century, first had, what he 
calls " the happy boldness," heureuse hardiesse, to 
represent the Eternal Father under the human 
form. The earliest instance is contained in a Latin 
bible, now in the Cabinet Imperial, cited by Mont- 
faucon, which was presented to Charles the Bold 
by the canons of the Church of Tours, in the year 
850.* So many ages did it take for this irreve- 
rence to fasten itself upon the Church. 

We realize, how r ever, that we can not better dis- 




* Milman, lib. it., c. 4. 



Tim CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 181 

play the contrast between the awe with which this 
Bubject was regarded in primitive days, and the 
bold profanity which in later times characterized 
the Church of Rome, than by copying a picture 
of the sixteenth century. It was painted on one 
of the windows of the church of Saint Madeleine at 
Troyes.* 

In this, we may say blasphemous piece, we see 
the sad change which had taken place in the feel- 
ing and- practice of the Church of Rome. The 
scene is the creation of Eve from the side of Adajn, 
while the Almighty is represented as an old man, 
arrayed in the robes of the Roman Pontiff, with 
the papal tiara upon his head. 

Equally at variance with the Romish doctrine 
of the worship of the Virgin Mary, is every lesson 
taught us by the inscriptions in the Catacombs. 
Not a particle of proof can be derived from these 
retreats in favor of this error. No prayer is offered 
to her in the epitaphs of the early Christians. No 
ova pro nobis is addressed to one whom they re- 
garded only as "blessed among women." Devo- 
tion seemed to rise too steadily to the Divine son 
to turn aside to his earthly mother. And when at 
length she became the object of the painter's art, 
it was only by successive steps that her image as- 
sumed a prominence among those objects of spirit- 
ual interest which enlisted his attention. It is 
doubtful, indeed, whether any delineations of the 
Virgin were executed before the fourth century, 
while it took two centuries longer to render them 
common. " We do not," says Saint Augustine, 

* Iconographic Chrcticnnc, \\ 224. Paris, 1848. 



182 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

"know what was the countenance of the Virgin."* 

In the earliest pictures, as in those we have given 
of the worship of the Magi, the only ones we could 
find in the Catacombs, the Virgin is represented 
merely as an accessory to the Divine infant whom 
she holds in her arms. She is often veiled, and the 
highest attempt of the artist, is to throw around a 
figure thus covered as much grace and modesty as 
his skill will. allow. In the oldest picture known, 
she is thus seated, in the calm majesty and dress 
of a Roman matron. .It was long before this veil 
was removed, and she was shown, as now, smiling 
on the child before her, mingling in her looks the 
holiness ascribed to her, with that maternal tender- 
ness which must have been so deeply incorporated 
with her nature. When that stage was reached, 
she began to be the inspiration of art, as the paint- 
er, striving after a divine idealism, was raised 
above all earthly models. Then it was that every- 
thing was added which could dignify the mother 
of our Lord, until her place in theology was 
changed, and she was exalted in a way for which 
the language of Apostles furnishes no warrant. 
The early fathers, in the words of Faber, spoke of 
the Virgin of the gospels, with their eyes fixed 
upon the mystery of the Incarnation ; whereas 
Roman divines speak of the Virgin in Heaven, 
with their eyes fixed upon her assumption thither. 
When the Virgin had begun to be invested with 
this dignity, the progress of the error was most 
rapid. The early reverence for her who was 

f "Neque enim novimus faciem Virginia Marias." — Augustin do 
Tri7L, c. viii. 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 183 

"blessed among women," insensibly deepened into 
adoration, and she became an object of popular 
worship. It was a doctrine which suited the fer- 
vent temperament of the East, where first it origina- 
ted; but there was none to which everywhere the 
heart seemed so to cling or which it embraced 
with such passionate affection. Of the Son, they 
could not think but in connection with " the High 
and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity," there 
were often images of terror and sternness suggested 
by the view; but with the Virgin it was not so. 
All was gentleness and love when they turned to 
the Mother and Child, and there they found an 
object for those more earthly affections which min- 
gled with their worship. The doctrine, therefore, 
became enshrined in the hearts of multitudes, and 
was developed in many a visible form in the rites 
and customs of the Church. It was a feeling, the 
workings of which a Christian poet of our own day 
has beautifully portrayed, when he says — 

"Some, I ween, 
Not unforgiven, the suppliant knee might bend, 
As to a visible Power, in which did blend 
All that was mixed and reconciled in thee 
Of mother's love with maiden purity, 
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!"* 

Thus it was that an addition was made to the 
worship of the Church, but it was an error, the 
progress of which we can easily trace, and one 
which we have seen receives no countenance from 
all that we can gather from the records of the early 
Christians. 

* Wordsworth't EecUt. Sonnets, xxi. 



184 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

The fact, too, is equally evident from these in- 
scriptions, that death was to them the admission 
into immediate joy. No visions of a purgatory 
clouded the dying gaze of the early Roman Chris- 
tians. They looked upon the soul as going at once 
to a place of refreshing, by means of God's pres- 
ence. Epitaphs like this abound : — 

NICEFORVS ANIMA 
DVLCIS IN REFRIGERIO. 

Niceforus, a sweet soul, in the place of refreshment. 

And is not this the same in its meaning as the 
following ? 

ARETVSA 
IN DEO. 

Arethusa, in God. 

Another, in memory of a child, contains the 
declaration — 

ESSE IAMINTER INNOCENTIS COEPISTI. 
You have already begun to be among the innocent ones. 

Another employs the following paraphrase to 
express the idea of death : — 

ACCERSITVS AB ANGELIS VII - IDVS IANVA. 
Borne away by angels on the seventh Ides of January. 

And can we suppose that this expression, used 
by our "Lord to describe the passage of Lazarus to 
the paradise above, was here intended to imply a 
conveyance to expiatory flames? Among the thou- 
sands, indeed, of these early epitaphs, it would be 
impossible to glean from any one a single expres- 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN RO>ffi. 185 

sion whicli gives countenance to the doctrine of 
purgatory.* 

So, too, is it with prayers for the dead. We con- 
fess, indeed, that on this point we looked for some- 
thing which might not be in strict accordance with 
the teachings of Scripture, for we know that there 
is no error to which the mind of man seems more 
naturally to incline. "When the loved ones of this 
world have been taken away, how gladly would 
the living preserve their connection with them, 
and follow them, if possible, with their prayers, 
even into the world of spirits ! We should have 
expected, therefore, to find this sentiment devel- 
oped in these inscriptions, even when it was the 

*The difficulty felt by the Romanists in making out an argument 
for Purgatory, is shown by the course pursued by their writers. 
The fond expressions of affection (some of which, of a similar char- 
acter, we shall quote in a subsequent part of this chapter) are 
seized upon and brought forward as implying a belief in this doc- 
trine. For instance, the record of wishes like these : — 
Aphthona ! mayst thou live in God. 
O sweet Roxanus! mayst thou rest well 

O Lea ! mayst thou rest in peace. 
Olimpiodorus! mayst thou live in God. 

On these and similar inscriptions, we have the following commen- 
tary: "These exclamations, by expressing such an anxious, tender wish 
that those departed friends, for whom they are ejaculated, may repose 
in bliss, in reality betray some doubts about their enjoyment of that 
happiness, and thus exhibit proof that the pious Christians who ut- 
tered them, believed that the soul of the deceased might be in an 
intermediate state, where the efficacy of such aspirations could 
reach him, and his spirit could be refreshed and benefited by the 
supplications of his surviving brethren." — Rock's liter urgia, p, 822* 

It is left to the reader to estimate the force of fchfa argument; 
bearing in mind, that it is the only one in favor of Purgatory which 
can be extracted from these records of the first throe centuries. 



186 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

offspring of a wish and a yearning of the heart, 
rather than of a settled and authorized belief. 
There was, too, a freedom of language in those 
ages of faith, when no error was yet to be guarded 
against, from which in these days men would 
shrink, when surrounded by misconstruction and 
heresy. The expression of feeling had not yet 
been restricted by the fear of evil to the cold 
rules of ordinary logic. 

It is to be remembered, too, that through the 
first ages, the majority of those who found here 
their graves were not only the humble and the 
illiterate, but converts lately redeemed from pagan- 
ism, and perhaps cut off before they had become 
grounded in any but the great essential doctrines 
of the new faith. And so were they who laid them 
to their rest, and wrote above them their epitaphs. 
We should expect, therefore, to find from them at 
times an expression of feeling, in which their love 
for the departed had caused them to exceed the 
bounds marked out by an authorized theology. 

And when, too, the ages of purity had gone, and 
those of superstition gathered over the Church — 
when, as we have seen, through the Middle Ages 
a feeling of reverence induced many to seek there 
their tombs, the errors which had been developed 
in the Church would naturally find their place also 
in these epitaphs.* 

* Maitland truly snys: "To decorate the chapels, adorn by mon- 
uments the labyrinths of sepulchres, and pay an excessive regard 
to all that belonged to martyrs and martyrdom, was the constant 
labor of succeeding centuries. Hence arises a chronological confu- 
sion, which calls for caution in deciding upon the value of any in- 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 187 

These considerations render more remarkable the 
fact, that we nowhere trace among these inscriptions 
anything which sanctions the belief that the custom 
of prayers for the dead was at all in use with the 
early Christians. Among mrore than three thou- 
sand monumental slabs arrayed in the Lapidarian 
Gallery by the papal authorities, the writer was 
able to discover nothing which sanctioned this 
error,* nor could he in the voluminous work of 
Bosio and Arringhi, the result of more than thirty 
years' labor. There is nothing which conveys the 
idea that they supposed any change was effected in 

ference that may Be drawn from these sources, respecting points of 
doctrine."— P. 14. 

* We are informed by Maitland, that he found in this collection 
one single epitaph containing the phrase, ora pro nobis. He does 
not state, however, to what age it probably belonged. 

In Rock's Hierurgia, a standard Romish work, some inscriptions 
are given which contain a request for prayers for the dead. 
Where these slabs are we know not, for they are certainly not 
in the Lapidarian Gallery, where we should most naturally 
look for them. Nor is any information given us by which we can 
decide on their age. We have no proof that they were not erected 
amid the superstitions of mediceval days, when, as we said, we 
should expect to find them, as the Catacombs then were ornament- 
ed in the debased taste of the times. 

The difficulty, too, felt by Romish writers in making out a case, 
is shown by their attempt to force a few inscriptions to declare 
what it is probable those who erected them never intended they 
should. For instance, in the Hierurgia (p. 244), we have a copy of 
this mutilated epitaph : — 

JOVIANE VIBAS IN DEO ET 
ROG. 

Romish writers have discovered that the last half word should be 
completed ROGA, making it a request to Jovianus to pray for us, 
though it irdone at considerable expense to the grammatical con- 
struction. 



188 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

the condition of the dead by the petitions of the 
living. The utmost that can be discovered is an 
ejaculatorv wish, the offspring a fond affection, 
which would thus pursue the object of its love be- 
yond the grave. It is, however, rather the expres- 
sion of a wish, than a petition for the departed 
soul. ' Some of these w r e have already quoted, 
when speaking of purgatory. We give, however, 
some further instances, and certainly nothing in 
these words can be construed into a support of the 
modern Romish practice on this subject. 

xrYK\T0AJW/*«HltfMZS(BCt* 

VALE SABINA 

VIXIT ANNOS VIII. MENSES VIII. 

DIES XXII. 

VIVAS IX DEO DVLCIS. 

Farewell, O Sabina! She lived viii. years, viii. months, and xxii. 
days. Mayst thou live sweet in God ! 

Still more forced is the following inscription: — 
BIMPLICIO 
VENEMEREN 
Tr.FILIO.TE- 

IN PACEM 
P.T.PR.N.S. 
The meaning of the last line in this epitaph remained undiscov- 




THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 1S9 

JNPAC£<£V< 
ANtf.XXUI £*" 

EXVPERI REQVIESCAS 

IN PACE QVI VIXIT 

ANNOS XXIII . ET 

M. III. p. VI. 

Exuperius, mayst thou rest in peace, who lived xxiii. years, iii. 
months, and vi. days.* 



ered for many years. Some late writers have, however, ingeniously 
completed it thus : — 

Pe Te PRo Nobi S. 
Pray for us. 

"We think, indeed, it is the decision of common sense, that if this 
doctrine, so much in unison with many of the deepest feelings of 
our nature, had been held by the primitive Church, we should have 
found it written broadly and clearly everywhere through those 
epitaphs. Its proof would not be left to half a dozen inscriptions 
(and most of these doubtful and disputed), among thousands which 
plainly declare the reverse. 

* We have copied this inscription from Rock's Ulcrurgia (p. 317), 
and given their rendering, to allow them the full benefit of it. It is 
one of the epitaphs from which they attempt to derive an argument 
for prayers for the dead. It will be seen that even with their trans- 
lation it proves nothing with regard to this doctrine. 

We would ask the reader, however, to observe how unwarrantable 
is the manner in which they complete it, What authority have they 
for filling up the word RKQ., as REQVIESCAS, to make it rend, 
'* Mayst thou rest"? It might just ns well be filled up with the 
present tense, for the sense would be much more in Conformity with 



190 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

INPACE £TB£NreWC770//£ 

IN PACE ET BENEDICTIONE 

SVFSVATE VIXIT ANIS XXX PLYS MINVS 

REDDIDIT KAL FEBB. 

Mayst thou be in peace and benediction, Sufsuatus! He lived 

xxx. years, more or less. He departed in the Kalends of February. 

FA VSTINA DVLCIS . BIBAS 
IN DEO. 

Sweet Faustina, may you live in God. 

BOLOSA DEYS TI 
BIREFRIGERET QVAE VI 
XIT ANNOS XXXI RECESSIT 
DIE XIII KAL OCT . B 
Bolosa, may God refresh thee. She lived thirty-one years. She 
departed on the thirteenth Kalends of October. 

AMERIMNVS 

RVFINAE • COIV 

GICARIS • SIME 

BENEMEREN 
TI ■ SPIRITVM • 

TVVM • DEYS 
REFRI ■ GERET. 

Amerimnus to Rufina, my dearest wife, the well-deserving. May 
God refresh thy spirit. 

In 1848, the Kev. Mr. Hobart Seymour, of the 
Church of England, was at Rome ; and, through 

the usual language of the epitaphs, if read — "The place of Exupe- 
rius. He rests in peace, who lived," <fec. It is precisely the same 
case with the next inscription we have quoted — "In peace and 
benediction," <fec 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 191 

the intervention of a Roman gentleman who held 
some office at the papal court, he became acquaint- 
ed with two members of the order of the Jesuits. 
They soon presented- him to others. They intro- 
duced him to the professors of their establishment, 
the Collegio Romano, and thus a series of conver- 
sations or conferences on the subject of the points 
at issue between the Churches of England and 
Rome commenced and was carried on, as occasion 
offered, during the whole period of his residence at 
Rome. A portion of his notes of these conversa- 
tions he has published, under the title of " Morn- 
ings among the Jesuits at Rome." 

It was impossible that these arguments could be 
carried on without the Catacombs being appealed 
to as one branch of evidence; and we copy por- 
tions of the conversations on the subject of prayers 
to the dead, to show the utterly inconclusive nature 
of these Jesuit arguments, and the futility of their 
attempts to derive any proof from these inscrip- 
tions. 

" On one occasion," says Mr. Seymour, " one of 
these Jesuit fathers referred to the inscriptions and 
figures graven upon the tablets as indicative of the 
fact that certain religious practices, against which 
Protestants objected in the Church of Rome, and 
which were made a ground of protestation and sep- 
aration, were religious practices prevalent among 
those who were the saints and martyrs of the primi- 
tive Church. On my asking to what religious prac- 
tice they especially alluded, one of my friends re- 
plied by referring to the practice of invocation of 
saints — praying to the saints ; adding that there 



192 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

was no doubt as to the existence of the practice, as 
it was evidenced in the inscriptions. 

"I asked to what inscriptions and what words he 
alluded, as I had observed nothing of the kind. 

"He replied by boldly stating that some of the 
tablets w T ere inscribed w r ith the ; orate pro nobis] 
or rather, correcting himself, ' orapro nobis? 

" I said that ' I had seen nothing of the kind ; that 
I had carefully examined the great collection of in- 
scribed tablets deposited in the Vatican ; that some of 
them — indeed, the larger portion — had no evidence 
or trace of Christianity beyond a cross, or some ana- 
gram or emblem of Christ, as the Ship, or the Fish, 
or the Greek letter X, or the A and Q, or some 
other of the various symbols of the Christian faith ; 
that some commenced with the solitary word * Pax ;' 
some concluded with the words 'in pace' or 'in 
Christo,' implying that the person either lived or 
died in peace or in Christ— in the peace of God or 
in the faith of Christ ; that I had observed many in- 
scriptions stating that the person lived in peace, 
' vixit in pace,' and only one ' vivas in pace,' ex- 
pressive of the sigh or wish of the survivor that the 
person might live in peace, and very few others of 
the same import; and that, in the large variety of 
inscriptions which I had had an opportunity of ex- 
amining, I had never seen or heard of more than 
one with either ora or orate pro nobis? 

" My friend replied that ' there was no doubt of 
the fact that there were such inscriptions, and that 
they actually possessed one in the college, and that 
he had seen the inscription, so that there could be 
no question as to the prevalence of the practice of 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 193 

saying the orate pro nobis — praying to the saints 
to pray for us.' 

" I reminded him that ' there were collected about 
two thousand inscriptions ; that these were taken 
chiefly from the monumental tablets of the Cata- 
combs; that they were cited as the representatives 
of the opinions of the primitive Christians ; and that 
all he was enabled to say was, that among these two 
thousand he had seen one with this inscription ! I 
then added, that, considering the heathens of Rome 
prayed to their departed heroes, it was no more than 
natural that some few of these, on embracing Chris- 
tianity, more in profession than in reality, might 
ignorantly continue the practice, and pray to some 
departed saint; and that such an exception could 
prove nothing in favor of the practice ; that so iso- 
lated an instance as one inscription could only serve, 
like an exception, to prove the rule, and the real 
w r onder was that more could not be found ; and the 
fact that more were not found among the thousands 
collected, proved powerfully that it was not the 
practiee of the primitive Christians to inscribe the 
ora pro nobis on their tombs. The inference w T as 
that they did not pray to the saints.' * * : * * 

" He then went on to say that ' there was a marked 
distinction to be observed in the inscriptions on the 
monuments of the Catacombs. One class, he stated, 
contained such expressions as rcquiescat in pace — 
may he rest in peace — may he be refreshed, may 
he be comforted: all this class are the monuments 
of Christian persons generally, and these inscrip- 
tions are prayers for the dead. The other class are 
the monuments of martyrs, who pass at once into 

9 



194 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

the beatific vision of God, and who therefore do not 
need those prayers for their peace, refreshment, or 
comfort. Therefore those prayers are omitted ; and 
this was the real cause of there being so many mon- 
uments without prayers. It was because there were 
so many martyrs. 

" I said, that ' I could not assent to his ideas of 
either class ; that the fact of there being no prayers 
for the dead or to the dead inscribed on the monu- 
ments, was to me an evidence that the Christians 
of those days neither prayed for the dead nor to the 
dead, and that this was a much easier way of ac- 
counting for the omission than supposing that all 
these were the monuments of martyrs — a supposi- 
tion for which, as far as I could judge, there was 
not the faintest foundation. And as for the state- 
ment that the words requiescat in pace, and such 
similar expressions, were inscribed on the tablets, I 
could onlv Bay, I had never seen such among all I 
had examined, that is, among all the collection in 
the Vatican, a collection larger than all other col- 
lections in the world combined. Such an instance 
might be there; I heard there was, but I saw noth- 
ing like it; on one tablet, indeed, I had seen the 
natural and loving ejaculation vivas in pace — may 
you have peace! — and this appeared to me no 
more than a wish expressed to the dead, rather 
than a prayer addressed to God. I added, that I 
could only speak of what I had myself seen. It 
was possible he might have had larger and better 
opportunities of informing himself, and that he had 
probably examined them more closely; but that I 
apprehended there might be some mistake on his 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 195 

part, and I would therefore feel obliged by his 
showing me some inscription of the kind.' 

" The reply to this was, conducting me to several 
tablets, and pointing to one on which was rudely 
engraved or scratched the figure of a man in a 
kneeling posture. 

"My friend, pointing to this, and observing that 
I was silent and could make nothing of it, said that 
i there was a kind of monumental language well 
known and understood ; that it was derived from a 
comparison of a large number of inscriptions ; that 
when a tablet was found without a prayer for the 
dead, it was to be regarded as the tablet of a mar- 
tyr ; and that, as martyrs go at once into the visi'on 
of God, they do not need any prayers, and there- 
fore no prayers &re inscribed on their tablets ; that, 
instead of such prayers, there was some emblem, as 
a representation of a person standing in the attitude 
of prayer, or as the figure of a kneeling man, that 
is, the figure of a man praying to the martyred dead, 
and thus embodying, not indeed the words, but the 
idea of the ova pro nobis. He said that this was a 
matter very well known and understood by those 
who were acquainted with the language of the mon- 
umental inscriptions.' 

" I could not but smile at this statement. I had 
seen so many of these monuments without anything 
that could imply a prayer for the dead, that I had 
concluded thence that the primitive Christians did 
not cherish such a practice as praying for the dead 
in the age of the Catacombs ; but my friend of the 
order of Jesuits assigned as the reason for so 
marked an omission, that ' all such monuments are 



196 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

those of the martyrs, who were in no need of such 
prayers.' Thus variously do different minds look 
upon the same things. 

" I remarked, in a doubting tone, ' that my 
friend seemed to regard the kneeling or praying 
figure as the representation, not of the martyr, but 
of some living friend.' 

"He said, that 'the monumental language de- 
manded this. A martyr could not require prayer, 
and therefore the figure could not represent the 
martyr himself; that it must therefore represent 
some one else, perhaps his friend, or relative, or 
follower, who erected the tablet, and who en- 
graved his own representation on the tablet, to 
show himself in the act of praying to the departed 
and glorified martyr ; that this was the well under- 
stood language of such inscriptions, and that I 
might depend on this interpretation.' 

" I replied, that ' his process of reasoning did 
not strike me as very logical. He found tablets 
without prayers for the dead, and at once con- 
cluded that they were the monuments of martyrs 
who needed no prayers ; and now he found the 
figure of a praying man, and at once concluded it 
could not represent the man buried beneath the 
monument, but the living man who erected the 
monument. I understood that the monument was 
always the monument of the dead ; that the in- 
scription was always with reference to the dead ; 
that any picture, or image, or other representation, 
was designed for the dead, and that it was quite 
new to me to hear of their representing the living. 
I regarded it as representing the dead, and, ac- 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 197 

cordingly, in the monuments of the Catacombs, 
such figures are always of the same sex as the dead 
person.' " 

[In a subsequent conversation, at my own resi- 
dence, with one of my friends from the Oollegio 
Romano, this subject was renewed, and I was not 
a little surprised at finding a new and different in- 
terpretation given of this figure. It was then ar- 
gued that the kneeling figure represented the 
buried dead; that it represented him as kneeling 
in prayer, and that it thus showed that the saints 
and martyrs in heaven pray, and that, as they can 
not pray for themselves, so they must be praying 
for us. In the Collegio Romano, the figure was 
said to represent the living ; but at my own resi- 
dence, it was said to represent the dead or departed. 
These inconsistencies are very frequent when argu- 
ing with different persons.] 

"My friend replied, that ' I was quite mistaken 
in regarding the figure as the representation of the 
departed one, for that the known language of in- 
scriptions required it should be the representation 
of the living Christian who erected the tablet ; and 
it was designed to show his belief in the martyr's 
enjoyment of the beatific vision of God> and that 
he was thus praying to the martyr to pray to God 
for him — asking for the intercession of the mar- 
tyr — really, an ova pro nobis ; and it was thus a 
clear proof or justification of i the Catholic Church,' 
in praying to the departed saints to pray for us.' 

" I answered this by saying, that 'I could not 
think the figure represented the living Christian 
who erected the tablet; that such an interpretation 



198 THE CATACOMBS OP KOME. 

was forced and unnatural, for that it was the cus- 
tom of all ages and all nations to represent the dead 
rather than the living on their monuments. I 
could not but think that the figure was designed to 
represent the dead, as one who had lived and died 
a praying man.' 

" He at once caught at my words, and said, c that 
if I regarded the figure as representing the depart- 
ed saint, then I must acknowledge it as evidence 
that in the primitive Church they thought the de- 
parted saints prayed ; and that, as they needed not 
to pray for themselves, they must be praying for us.' 

" I said, that ' I did not regard the figure as rep- 
resenting the departed saint as praying for us in 
heaven, but as having been a praying man in his 
life ; that as the words, ' in peace, 5 and c in Christ,' 
implied that the departed had lived or died in the 
peace of God, and in the faith of Christ, so the 
kneeling posture might imply that he lived or died 
in prayer. I thought this the natural interpretation 
of the figure ; and I said that in England, and, I 
believed, in other countries, and certainly in the 
Church of St. Peter, at Rome, the monumental 
statues always represent the departed persons ; that 
it was usual to represent them, not as they were 
when dead, but as they were when alive ; the war- 
rior as a warrior — the orator as an orator — the 
painter as a painter — the clergyman as a clergy- 
man ; and I observed that all the monumental fig- 
ures of popes and nuns in St. Peter's represented 
them as popes or nuns — represented them as they 
were on earth, and not as they are supposed to be 
in heaven ; and that, in the same way, we ought to 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 199 

regard this kneeling figure as representing the de- 
parted Christian as he lived or died on earth, a 
praying man. He was represented kneeling, to 
show he w r as a man of prayer — a Christian man. 
There is an example of it in Scripture, where the 
conversion of St. Paul is described in the simple 
words, c Behold, he prayeth !' 

" There was no direct reply to this."* 
We think the folly of this reasoning, by those 
who are on the spot, and who have the best oppor- 
tunities for establishing an argument from the in- 
scriptions of the Catacombs, were it possible to do 
so, will show that they have no testimony to give 
in support of the errors of the Church of Koine. 
Mr. Sej^mour, indeed, in two concluding para- 
graphs, thus gives his own experience, so entirely 
in conformity with what we have already stated, 
and, at the same time, admirably sums up the 
whole argument : — 

"Day after day, and week after week, have I 
paused in this gallery, to examine these monument- 
al inscriptions. It always occurred to me, that if 
a belief in the sufferings of the dead in purgatory 
— if a belief in the efficacy of the prayers of the 
living in behalf of the dead — if a belief in the 
matter of fact of the departed saints praying for 
the living — if a belief in the efficacy of any pray- 
ing to or invocation of the departed saints, was 
held among the Christians of the Church in those 
early ages, when the Church used to hide herself, 
used to celebrate her worship, and used to bury 
her dead, in the Catacombs, there ought to be, and 

* Mornings among the Jesuits, pp. 223-231. 



200 TIIK CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

there should be, some evidence of such belief in 
the inscriptions so numerous to be found in the 
Catacombs. The absence — the total and perfect 
absence — of everything of the kind, seems to 
argue powerfully that no such things entered into 
the religious belief of the Christians of those ages. 

" It is observable that in a modern grave-yard in 
any Roman Catholic country, there are always ex- 
pressions in the monumental inscriptions which in- 
timate the belief of the Church of Rome. There 
is a request to the passing traveller to offer a 
prayer for the dead ; there is a statement setting 
forth that it is a good thing to pray for the dead ; 
there is a prayer that the dead may rest in peace ; 
there is a request for the assisting prayers of the 
saints. These and others of a similar tendency are 
found in every cemetery in Roman Catholic coun- 
tries. But there is nothing like this — nothing that 
has the faintest resemblance of this, or of any 
opinion approaching to any of these — to be found 
among the innumerable inscriptions collected from 
the Catacombs. The whole collection of inscrip- 
tions thus argues unanswerably that those opinions 
that have been of late years so universally re- 
ceived in the Church of Rome were wholly un- 
known in the primitive Church."* 

We will bring forward but one more error of 
practice in the modern Church of Rome, and 
whose claim to antiquity is entirely refuted by 
these primitive epitaphs. We refer to the celib- 
acy of the clergy. For the first three centuries, 
no ecclesiastical law or regulation required the 

* Mornings among the Jesuits, pp. 234, 236. 



THE CHANGES OF MODERN ROME. 201 

adoption of this practice.* Eusebius, in his his- 
tory, often speaks of married bishops and presby- 
ters; the council of Nice, in 325, confirmed to 
them this right ; and Cyprian, in his account of 
the martyrdom of Frumidicus, tells us how his joy 
was increased at beholding his wife standing by his 
side in the flames, his companion in suffering and 
glory. 

Such is the record of history. Yet how plainly 
is this truth confirmed, when over the tombs of the 
early Roman Christians we meet with epitaphs like 
these : — 

LOCVS BASILI PRESB ET FELICITATI EIVS 
SIBI FECERVNT. 

To Basilus, the presbyter, and Felicitas, bis wife. They made 
this for themselves. 

The following epitaph on the wife of a priest, is 
given in Arringhi (lib. iii., c. iii.) :— 

LEVITAE CONIVNX PETRONIA FORMA PVDORIS 

HIS MEA DEPONENS SEDIBVS OSSA LOCO 
PARCITE VOS LACRIMIS DYLCES CVM CONIVGE 

NATAE 
* VIVENTEMQVE DEO CREDITE FLERE NEFAS 
DP IN PACE III NON OCTOBRIS FESTO VC CONSS. 

Petronia, a priest's wife, the type of modesty. In this place I lay 
roy bones ; spare your tears, dear husband and daughters, and be- 
lieve that it is forbidden to weep for one who lives iu God. Buried 
in peace, on the 3d Nones of October, Festus being Consul. 

What must have been the custom of the Church 
when these epitaphs were publicly sel up ! We 
believe, indeed, that those bishops, who, by their 

* Bingham's Orig. Eccles., lib. iv., c. v. 

9* 



202 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

support of matrimony among the clergy, drew 
down upon themselves the indignation of Jerome, 
w r ere introducing no new doctrine, but rather stri- 
ving, in an innovating age, to prolong the early 
simplicity of the Church. The very spirit, how- 
ever, against which they warred, showed that 
clouds were darkening the horizon about them. 

We have thus dwelt upon a few points to illus- 
trate the difference between the ancient Church of 
Rome and its modern successor. We unhesitating- 
ly assert, that not one of the doctrines or practices, 
which we look upon as errors, can find support 
from these primitive records. With regard to 
many points, now much insisted on in the Church 
of Rome, the very silence of these inscriptions in 
the Catacombs is most conclusive. We feel, there- 
fore, that in deciding on what is apostolical, we 
w T ill take our part and lot with these early Chris- 
tians, for in the very simplicity of their creed we 
breathe the freshness of primitive times. And in 
so doing, we are but adopting that rule of Tertul- 
lian — " Whatever is first, is true ; whatever is more 
recent, is spurious."* 

* " Perseque adversus universas hsereses jam hino prejudicatum 
sit ; id est verum, quodcunque primum ; id esse adulterum, quod- 
cunque posterius." — TertulL adv. Prax. y Oper. ii., p. 405. 



IX. 



CONCLUSION 



IX. 

CONCLUSION. 

There is a legend of the Eastern Church, which 
has been preserved, not only by its beauty, but be- 
cause it embodies a melancholy truth with regard 
to the changes which a few centuries wrought in 
the early faith. The scene was laid at Ephesus, in. 
the Decian persecution, which so severely tried the 
strength of those who then professed the Christian 
name. But while the storm was raging, and the 
stake and the arena were each day seeking new 
victims, seven youth fled from their adversaries, 
and sought refuge in a lonely cave in the neighbor- 
hood of the city. And there God permitted them 
to fall into a death-like slumber. 

They slept on, in this miraculous way, without 
injuring the powers of life, while years expanded 
into centuries. One persecution after another 
passed by, till the rage of the adversary was ex- 
hausted, yet neither the sounds of sorrow or re- 
joicing broke their enduring trance. Christianity 
vindicated its claim to the dominion of the human 
mind, the faith was heard in Caesar's palace, and 



206 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

the imperial master of the world adopted the cross 
as his badge of honor. Then, at last, one of them 
awoke ; but to him it had only been the dream of 
a night. He was ignorant of the mighty changes 
which had passed, and leaving his companions 
still slumbering, he cautiously crept from his 
hiding-place and entered his native Ephesus. 
There, he gazed about him bewildered, for centu- 
ries had left scarcely a familiar feature in his an- 
cient home. A gilded cross over the city-gate by 
which he entered, particularly awakened his sur- 
prise. At length, with fear and trembling, he 
asked, " Whether there were any Christians in the 
city?" — "Christians!" was the answer, "we are 
all Christians here !" And then he learned how 
long his slumber must have lasted, and how mighty 
the changes, which during that interval had been 
wrought in the condition of the world. A " great 
gulf" separated him from the hour in which he 
had fallen asleep. He looked in vain for the once 
honored temples of heathenism, but saw them every- 
where replaced by those dedicated to the worship 
of his crucified Master. He found the cross a hal- 
lowed emblem, and the gospel honored where be- 
fore he had known its profession rewarded only 
with the crown of martyrdom. The home of the 
bigoted Jew was now a place of desolation — the 
Greek philosopher had acknowledged his wisdom 
to be foolishness, at the foot of the cross — and all 
that might and power of the Western world, which 
once guarded with such jealous care the rites of 
paganism, were now pledged to maintain the su- 
premacy of the faith which had supplanted it. The 



CONCLUSION. 207 

power of heathenism was broken, and all, from the 
emperor down to his lowest subject, professed that 
holy name which first the disciples assumed at An- 
tioch. 

His strange speech and antiquated garb attracted 
the attention of those he encountered, until finally 
he was brought before the prefect. There his 
story was told, and- in amazement all — the magis- 
trates, the bishop, and the emperor himself — fol- 
lowed him to his hiding-place. They found his 
companions still sleeping, and, in the language of 
the legend, " their faces had the freshness of roses, 
and a holy and beautiful light was about them." 

At the call of those who had gathered in the 
cave, they too awoke ; and we may imagine the 
strange, bewildering joy which took the place of 
all their fears. They felt that the Golden Age 
promised by their Lord had come, and righteous- 
ness was now to mantle the renovated earth. And 
then their thanksgiving was offered up, that they 
had been spared to witness these glorious times, 
and to spend their days where everything around 
them only ministered to devotion. But a brief 
experience dispelled these bright visions. They 
found that the world had been but Christianized in 
name. They looked in vain for the faith and de- 
votion of those who were once their brethren, for 
these qualities seemed known but by tradition as 
the traits of an age of martyrdom. They found 
that expiring paganism, in its last convulsive strug- 
gles, had thrown its mantle over the power which 
conquered it, and in place of the pure faith of their 
early friends, they witnessed a distorted religion, 



208 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME. 

possessing little resemblance to that which it had 
Bupplanted. Forms, too, and ceremonies had been 
imported from the heathen world, until the simple 
rites of the first centuries were overloaded and ob- 
scured. And thus they turned away in sorrow 
from a world which called itself, indeed, by their 
Master's name, but retained so little the lineaments 
of the faith for which he died. The earth had be- 
come darkened to them, and they found they could 
live only in " the light of other days." And, there- 
forQ, in their weariness and sorrow, they turned 
once more to the cave, which for two centuries had 
been their resting-place, beseeching God to restore 
them again to that slumber which had been broken. 
And to the crowds which followed them, they ex- 
claimed : " You have shown us many heathen who 
have given up their old idolatry without gaining 
anything better in its room — many who are of no 
religion at all — and many with whom the religion 
of Christ is no more than a cloak of licentiousness 
— but where, where are the Christians?" 

And their prayer was granted. They had dis- 
charged the duty assigned them, and uttered the 
reproof for which they had been raised from their 
long slumber. Once more, then, they sank to rest, 
but now it was the sleep of death from which there 
was to be no awakening, until their Lord came 
again to visit his heritage. And thus their spirits 
went to be with those who had once rendered the 
earth fragrant with their footsteps, and whom they 
remembered as the teachers and guides of their 
early days.* 

* In the latter part of this fable, we have followed the version 



CONCLUSION. 209 

Transfer this scene to Rome, and we believe the 
fable would teach a melancholy truth. If a voice 
could now summon forth from their tombs in the 
Catacombs some of those who, in the purest ages 
of the Roman Church, were there laid to their rest, 
we believe that their disappointment on entering 
the Imperial city would be as great as was that of 
the sleepers at Ephesus. They would be able, in- 
deed, to worship beneath gilded roofs, and find the 
most gorgeous structures in the world erected in 
honor of their crucified Lord ; but the faith which 
there is enshrined would be widely different from 
that which they had learned in their living day. 
And this is the argument we have endeavored to 
present. We wish to show the wide interval there 
is in faith and practice, between the primitive 
Christians of Rome, and those who now dwell 
upon the Seven Hills- — how long the way which 
the Church must travel back before she shall reach 
again the path from which she has wandered, or 
put on that " original brightness," which in the 
apostle's day caused her "faith to be spoken of 
throughout the whole world."* 

The feeling with which we read these epitaphs is 
the same, in some respects, with which we study 
the epistles of the apostles. There is a plainness 
and manliness with which they appeal to the con- 
science of the reader, which he can not but at once 
appreciate. They speak directly to the heart, and 
bring forward those truths about which the affec- 

given by Bishop Heber, rather than the usual legend. See Mrs. 
Jamiesorts Legendary Art. 
* Rom., i., 8. 



210 THE CATACOMBS OF ROME; 

tions and hopes can instinctively gather. They plnce 
man in direct communication with the Deity. No 
mediation of the Virgin or the Saints is mentioned 
in the Epistles, and we trace none in the inscrip- 
tions written by those who stood nearest to their 
Lord. We have to ascend from these dim retreats 
and enter the gorgeous temples of Rome's present 
faith, to find ourselves in contact with the manifold 
corruptions which ages of darkness have bequeathed. 
The words of Scripture we believe to be clear 
and explicit against what we regard as the addi- 
tions of the Church of Rome, to the pure doctrines 
of early times. And the testimony of history, too, 
is equally plain. From the ages of a dim and dis- 
tant past, the voice of centuries comes down to 
us, rebuking the changes which superstition has 
wrought since apostles went to their rest. Yet 
nothing, we confess, has ever so deeply impressed 
us with regard to the reality of primitive truth and 
purity, as the study of these epitaphs. When the 
gorgeous services of the Church were passing be- 
fore us in the Sistine chapel, and cardinals, prelates, 
and priests, in their richest robes, had gathered about 
the altar — when the most splendid music in the 
world w r as swelling through the lofty-frescoed 
arches, and sounding back from the porphyry pil- 
lars, so that it seemed as if the sublime anthem 
could almost, by its glorious strains, recall the dead 
to life — we have thought of the simple hymn of 
praise which once echoed through the dim chapels 
of the Catacombs, and wondered what those who 
then joined in it would have thought of all this 
show and pageantry. And when the hour of Yes- 



CONCLUSION. 211 

pers came, and the sun gilded with his last rays the 
dome of St. Peters, before he sank to his golden 
bed behind the Pincian Hill, and the stars came 
out in the clear blue of an Italian sky, as a thou- 
sand bells sent their chimings up through the dark- 
ening heavens and away over the desolate Gam- 
pagna, we have remembered how changed was the 
service to which they summoned their worshippers 
— how prayers went up to saints and martyrs, 
" men of like passions with ourselves," instead of 
the one Lord, with whose name alone upon their lips 
these ancient saints had died, and it seemed to us 
as if Rome had again put on somewhat the gar- 
ments of her old heathenism. Oh, solemn and 
mysterious city of the mighty dead ! city, rich 
with the garnered dust of the saints, and more 
consecrated by sacred memories of the past than 
any spot on earth ; but that holy city, where our 
Lord himself taught, and wept, and sorrowed, and 
from which he bore his cross up the Hill of Suffer- 
ing, how art thou fallen from the glory of thy 
early youth ! How often is the pilgrim obliged to 
tarn away from thy shrines, because the teachings 
which they utter would have been strange to those 
who sat at the apostles' feet. 

It is for this reason we are thankful that Rome 
thus bears within her own bosom, the proof of that 
early purity from which she herself has wandered 
— that the spirit of the First Ages is so indelibly 
stamped on the Walls of the Catacombs, that no 
sophistry can explain away its force. There the 
elements of a pure faith are written " with an iron 
pen, in the rock, for ever;" and the Church has 



212 THE CATACOMBS OF SOUK. 

only to look to " the hole of the pit whence she 
was digged," to see what she should again become. 
"Would that she could learn the lesson! Would 
that, retaining the zeal with which she clings to the 
essentials of faith, and that wide-spread policy which 
embraces the whole earth in its grasp, she could cast 
aside the corruptions which ages of darkness have 
gathered over her, and use her mighty strength for 
the renovation of this fallen world. We look back 
with thankfulness to the hour, when the eye of 
Gregory I. rested on the captive Angles, in a Ro- 
man slave-market, and he planned that enterprise 
which was to infuse new life into the expiring 
Church of Britain, and our prayers go up, that the 
hour may come when Rome shall be once more 
linked in the bonds of a pure faith w r ith that Apos- 
tolic Church, that side by side they may go forth 
to that struggle which awaits the true-hearted in 
urging on their Master's cause. But now, we feel 
that an impassable barrier separates us from the 
Church which sits enthroned upon the Seven Hills. 
We • see too plainly the many errors with which 
she has deformed the faith, and it is therefore with 
a feeling of relief that w r e turn from the gorgeous 
services of St. Peter's, to the traces of a simpler 
faith in the Church in the Catacombs. 



THE END. 



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In Press, 

FIFTY YEARS IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 

BY VINCENT NOLTE 
MAW 1 — iClACh 



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